


A Game of Two Halves

by CarnivalOfRust



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Girlfriends/No Wives, Developing Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Football | Soccer, La Liga, M/M, Real Madrid CF, Romantic Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-06-25 09:33:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 40,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15638010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarnivalOfRust/pseuds/CarnivalOfRust
Summary: Somebody is after Luka, and Marcelo may have bitten off more than he can chew.





	1. Of Preparations and Tactical Errors

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work in progress. So far, I have seven chapters pinned on paper, and there is no end in sight. Note that this started out as self-indulgent fluff, and then somehow the stalker component became the dominant plot point. So this gets darker as the story continues.
> 
> The main events are roughly formatted to fit into the seasonal break in 2017, although there might be some discrepancies. Furthermore, I´ve chosen to emit Marcelo Vieira and Luka Modrićs marital relations from the story. This enables me to focus on the development of their own relationship without having to contend with the subjects of spousal infidelity, divorce and such.
> 
> Feel free to share your thoughts on Tumblr (Username: goats-guts-and-glory).

Marcelo was unsure at first about what drew him to the newest addition to their team. The midfielder, freshly transferred from a moderately successful English club, had yet to make a name for himself in Spain, and his first impression of the guy was dictated by his heavy accent which made it almost impossible for Marcelo to understand him. He was also rather quiet and seemed to live a solitary life, keeping things private and his life to himself. But above all, Luka Modrić was small.

The Brazilian had a weakness for small things, and he thought he had found the source of his growing obsession as time went on. It was true that Marcelo wasn´t the tallest tree in the forest, but this guy still seemed impossibly delicate next to him, and even more so compared to the rest of the team. It made Marcelo want to keep a close eye on him, to keep him safe from potential harm, but the most frustrating thing was that Modrić never seemed to need the protection. He was quick to intercept attacks and even quicker to evade them, and the defender´s protective hovering seemed to irritate him more than anything else. Still, their constant proximity lead to an increasing rate of communication between them, and it didn´t take Marcelo long to realise that he had begun to think of the other man as a good friend, and from there it was a tiny step towards the next stage.

Marcelo knew he was screwed on the day Luka jumped at him to celebrate Isco´s latest goal, vibrant and laughing despite his exhaustion. He experienced a brief moment of terror because he had not been ready for the additional weight, but Luka was a wiry little thing, wrapping slender arms around his shoulders and squeezing them for all he was worth, and Marcelo wanted to keep him there, wanted to hold his friend close and shield him from the world. The moment was over as soon as it came, but Marcelo could not forget that feeling.

He refused to panic. He told himself that he had neglected his love life, and the lack of women had begun to affect him. That the Croat with his slim stature and longish hair just fit into the picture a little better than his other team mates, and that the feeling would go away over time.

It did not, but by the time Marcelo acknowledged this, he had reached a point beyond caring. However, he needed to make sure the feeling hadn´t been a one-timer, born from their shared moment of triumph.

“Swap jerseys with Case”, he told Luka at half-time of their friendly. A Croatian player whose name escaped him threw him a strange look, and Luka shrugged.

“Sure. Any particular reason?”

“Let´s call it an experiment.”

True to his word, Luka approached Casemiro after the match, and the stocky Brazilian obliged him. It took some less than subtle hints from Marcelo about how not wearing the thing would be an insult to their friend to get him to slip the shirt over his head. Marcelo´s hard work had paid off, and as the sight of Luka in a jersey that almost went down to his knees filled him with a rush of amazement, another emotion started to filter in. Belatedly, Marcelo identified it as possessiveness.

“Are you alright?” Luka asked him, tugging at the collar of his shirt to cover more of his exposed collar bone. Marcelo stared at the stretch of pale skin, and his eyes must have given him away, because Luka was already squinting again, something he always did when he was irritated. “Marcelo?”

“Yup, no, everything´s fine. Peachy, yeah.”

The midfielder´s squint intensified, but Marcelo was too busy ogling him to react in a more reassuring way.

Marcelo had his confirmation, but he could not bring himself to actively do something about it until Gareth Bale joined their team. Bale, coming from Luka´s ex-club and having played with him for several years, could be constantly found at the Croat´s side, and jealousy soared within Marcelo every time he had to listen to them happily conversing in their wretched English. They looked good together as well, Bale with his strong, handsome features and Luka, sharp and elfin.

“You don´t really like Gareth” Luka observed during one of their afternoon training sessions. “Why?”

Marcelo was not ready to answer that question honestly. “What? No, I like him alright.”

“Is that so?” Luka looked doubtful, reaching out to steady himself on Marcelo for a stretching exercise, and the defender suppressed a shiver when a slim hand landed on his shoulder. “You never talk to him.”

“Hey, it´s not like he speaks Spanish, not to mention Portuguese” Marcelo defended himself.

“So what, you suddenly forgot how to talk in English?” Luka frowned, obviously not buying Marcelo´s excuse. “That´s not like you.”

“Alright, I may have-… some reservations about your friend Bale.”

“Gareth.”

“Gareth. But I´d rather not talk about it. In any case, I´ll work on it. I´m-… sorry, I´m sure he´s a great guy.”

“If you say so.”

And Marcelo actually made a conscious effort to exchange a few friendly words with the Welshman every time they crossed paths, which happened quite often considering he regularly sought out Luka. To his surprise, the sting of seeing them together lessened as he got to know Gareth, but it never completely faded.

He decided that he finally had to talk to someone about his problem. There were not many people he trusted with this particular issue, Pepe being the most likely candidate to keep it to himself, so Marcelo went to him to spill his guts.

“I don´t know” Marcelo complained over an inch of tequila, “Luka is… Luka is one of the most amazing people I´ve ever met. The way he plays, he´s so calm and precise, I could watch him all day. And he´s just… so small, y´know? I just wanna-… hug him and keep him safe and maybe mess up his hair and spend all my time with him, right?”

“Sounds like you´ve got a crush” Pepe said slowly.

“I know, that´s the strangest part. I´m not gay, at least I don´t think so. But Luka, I don´t know.”

“Well, it´s not that much of a stretch” his friend grinned. “He looks like a girl anyway, so your honour is saved.”

“He does! Think about how far he´s come in the football business looking like that! How badass is that?”

“Right.”

Marcelo waved his hand impatiently. “But what do I do about him? Should I tell him what I just told you?” 

“Maybe not in these exact words-…”

“No, I probably shouldn´t. It would ruin our team dynamic.”

“Stop thinking about the team for a second and listen.” Pepe set down his glass carefully. “You´ve been having these feelings for, what, four years now? Five? Dude, there comes a time when a man´s gotta own up. You don´t want to be miserable forever, right? And you should start thinking about your own happiness for a change. I know how much you´ve given for the team. We can handle it. Not that there would be much to handle. You two would be so disgustingly cute.”

“You could be right” Marcelo sighed. “But he is also my friend, and I don´t want to ruin what we already have.”

“I think you should take that risk” his friend told him. “I can´t imagine Luka ending your friendship just because you have a little crush. Or a large one, but no need to mention that until you make headway.”

“Headway.” Marcelo snorted helplessly and then put down his glass, deciding that he probably had enough. “That´s hilarious, dude.”

 

 

Despite his lingering doubts, their talk had given him the push he needed to take the next step. He started off small, put extra effort in his jokes to make Luka smile, which was a difficult thing to achieve. His default expression was reminiscent of a traumatized deer, and when he was not frowning at the world´s general antics, he assumed a look of careful alertness. Marcelo almost wished he had fallen for a more cheerful man, not that there was much he could do about it now. But as he also enjoyed a challenge, Marcelo counted every smile as a victory. The foundation had been laid out over the years, and now it was time to build upon it.

He had thought thoroughly about his approach, but he couldn´t have predicted Luka´s reaction towards the next step of his plan to win him over. It was just a little note neatly folded and placed in his friend´s shoe where he was sure to find it. They were due to another training session that day, all of them gathered in the changing room, and Marcelo carefully cultivated a neutral expression when Luka picked up his stuff and the note fell out. He picked it up and unfolded it, face blanching as he read the scribbled lines. Hastily crunching the note, Luka stuffed it in his pocket, shoulders hunched and lips pressed together in a thin line.

Whatever Marcelo had been hoping for, it certainly wasn´t this. “Quick” he slapped Sergio´s shoulder to get his attention, “ask Luka what´s wrong.”

“What, why?”

“Dude, just-… help me out here.”

“Hey, Lukita, you alright?” Sergio called out before Luka could flee the locker room.

“Yes” the Croat nodded, still with a haunted look in his eyes that Marcelo desperately wanted to erase, “it´s fine.” He hurriedly left, and the defenders stared after him.

“O… kay?” Sergio shrugged and turned to Marcelo. “There you have it.”

“You-… Argh.” Marcelo stumbled after Luka, still trying to look innocuous. He should have picked Nacho to ask instead. The man could really pry information out of a guy.

“Luka, wait!” When he caught up to his friend, Luka had already put his trademark look of polite confusion back on his face. “What was that just now?”

“Hm?”

“You didn´t look so good.”

“I don´t know what you´re talking about” Luka said stubbornly, and Marcelo cursed him for his lack of cooperation. It was one of the reasons why he knew so little of his colleague even after so many years. The man knew how to build a wall.

“Come on, man” Marcelo practically begged, “just tell me. I´m kinda worried here.”

Luka stared at him for a moment, and whatever calculation went on inside his head, it must have turned out in Marcelo´s favour, because he drew the note out of his pocket and offered it to his friend. Marcelo took it carefully. “What´s this?” he asked, pretending not to know about the message.

“It was in my locker. Read it.”

Marcelo smoothed the worst crinkles from the paper and let his eyes wander over the lines. “Okay. Someone wanted to wish you a good day. That´s not so bad, is it?”

The midfielder´s hands were clenching and unclenching anxiously, and Marcelo really started to get nervous as well. “Is it?”

“I have-…” Luka´s mouth snapped shut when Casemiro passed them in the hallway, nodding a greeting before advancing towards the training grounds. “Not here.” He tugged him towards an empty room a few doors down, letting the door fall shut behind them. It was very quiet all of a sudden, until Luka decided to speak up.

“I get… things sometimes. Letters, pictures, like that. I don´t know who is sending them, so I cannot really stop it.”

“Letters? What do they say?” Marcelo asked, curiosity winning over his growing dread.

Luka smiled thinly. “They´re not usually so nice as this”, he gestured towards the note in Marcelo´s hand. “But at least they don´t appear in my locker, either. My agent usually passes the stuff along to me.”

“What do you mean, not so nice?” Marcelo insisted, unable to comprehend Luka´s claim. “Is somebody hurling insults at you? I´ve gotten a letter like that once. Some crazy Barca fan, I´ll bet.”

“No, it´s not that. They´re not insults. In a way, they´re… compliments?”

“Like what?”

The Croat reluctantly fished his phone from his pocket. “If I show you what I mean, will you keep it to yourself? I´d like to keep this quiet.”

“Of course.” Marcelo nodded instantly.

“I took some pictures for the police, right-… Here´s one.” He shrugged when Marcelo looked up at him at the mention of the police with shock written on his face, almost forgetting to take the phone from Luka.

Luka had snapped several shots of different pages and objects that Marcelo couldn´t identify on the tiny screen, but the letter Luka selected with a tap on the display was written in neutral black script. In Spanish as well, and Marcelo was grateful he didn´t have to fight his way through English or, God forbid, ask Luka for a translation of some obscure Croatian message.

“This just says-… _I like the way you play_. Seems nice enough… Hang on-… _I want to play with you_?” Marcelo lifted an eyebrow as he scrolled through the text, the other one following immediately, his voice getting higher by the second. “ _I could watch you all day, but what about the night_? Dude, that´s-… _I can make you scream_ -… He-… She? Wants to _what_?”

“It´s a man” Luka said with terrifying certainty, “I´m sure. The other letters are more, how do you say? Explicit.”

“That´s terrible. That´s disgusting! Who-… That´s sick!” Marcelo ruffled his hair in stunned disbelief.

“Because it is a man who sends this?”

“No! No, I mean, it would still mean the same coming from a woman. But who in their right mind would do that to a stranger? Unless you´re into it-… which you´ve made pretty clear you aren´t” Marcelo hurried to add when Luka slapped the back of his head. “How long has this been happening?”

“Maybe two months, or a little more.”

“Hang on, two months? You´ve had a _stalker_ for _two months_ and you didn´t tell me?” Marcelo felt like all the aggravation he had missed by not knowing about the situation was catching up to him all at once.

“I don´t like to gossip about my private life” Luka was getting agitated as well, and in Marcelo´s opinion he was directing his anger at the wrong person.

“That´s not gossiping, that´s-… I need to know about these things. We all do! You could be in serious danger. If that guy decides to do something about this, this obsession, then we´ll need to be prepared. I don´t know, you need personal security, or-… or a weapon maybe-…”

“I´m not carrying around any weapons” the midfielder told him.

“But you might-…”

“No.”

Marcelo wanted to argue, but then he remembered a conversation from a while back. They had been talking about the days before their careers took flight, and while Marcelo´s childhood hadn´t precisely been easy, it seemed like paradise compared to what Luka had gone through in his war-torn home country. If you grew up watching what weapons could do to your people, your family, you either took up arms yourself or swore off them, and Luka was peaceful by nature.

“I still think it might help to have a means of defending yourself” the defender mumbled sulkily but had to concede that it would probably better not to add that particular variable to the gaping mess of a situation. Still, the worst-case scenario could mean that Luka had to face the potential threat alone, and suddenly Marcelo wished his friend was taller, bigger, so that he would have a better chance to escape unscathed.

“But this is new” Luka said, waving the note in his hand as a demonstration, “he´s never done that before.” Marcelo flinched as his friend turned to him with desperate eyes. “Isn´t there some kind of security system in this building? Aren´t they supposed to prevent people from entering without permission?”

“Luka.” Marcelo knew it was time to own up. “That note didn´t come from your stalker.”

“How do you know that?” Luka asked suspiciously.

“I wrote it.”

The Croat looked taken aback. “You? Why would you write me a note like that?”

Marcelo´s brain went into overdrive. After what Luka had revealed to him, Marcelo knew that the last thing he needed was probably another guy with the hots for him. However, he didn´t want to lie about the whole thing, not after Luka had been so honest. “Dude, I think this is the worst possible time to explain that. You´ve got a crazy person harassing you and shit, I don´t think you need to hear that right now.”

“Okay, now I´m really curious” Luka said with half a smile, but his eyes had widened.

“I´d really rather wait-…”

“Marcelo.” Luka stared at him, and Marcelo knew he had lost before he could even begin to fight. “Please.”

“I really like you” he blurted out. “And no, not just in a friend-likes-friend kinda way. I was trying to get you used to the idea slowly, hence that note. I didn´t know how fucked up that plan really was. I mean, really, a stalker? Who are we, Beyoncé and friends? Who´d even-… Never mind. The point is, I like you-… I already said that, didn´t I? But I don´t want you to hate me just because of that, because I also like us being friends.”

Luka was quiet for a moment. “You were right”, he said eventually, “that probably wasn´t the best moment to tell me. It´s kind of weird now.”

“Hey now” Marcelo protested, “you were the one begging me to tell you with your… I don´t know, with your face.”

“With my face.” That didn´t seem to impress Luka terribly.

“Yes. Your face is its own kind of weapon.”

“… Was that supposed to be a compliment?”

“… Yes.”

“You should practise more.”

“Ugh, I will-… Wait, what?” Marcelo gaped at him. If he had correctly interpreted Luka´s advice… “Like, practise on you?”

“You might.” Luka seemed more amused than anything, but Marcelo knew him well enough to notice the hints of insecurity in his expression, from the way his fingers drummed against his thigh to the nervous wrinkle between his eyebrows.

“Does that mean… You don´t hate me because I have a crush on you?” Marcelo asked, not quite able to believe that it should be so easy.

“Of course not. You are a good man, Marcelo, and a good friend as well. I feel… honoured by your interest.” Luka picked his words carefully, but his reaction did not seem like an upcoming rejection to Marcelo, especially not after the next few sentences that actually made him clear his throat in giddy embarrassment. “And you are very handsome as well. I wouldn´t mind having a closer relationship with you. But you have to bear in mind…”

He started to wring his hands together, fingertips still dancing madly. “I might not be able to make the best decisions right now. I don´t know how the situation with the letter person will develop, and the last thing I want is for you to get hurt in the process. If we get together, you could become a target, and if all goes well and he is stopped, I could still be too insecure for you to want to be around as someone who´ll have to be the support.”

“Luka, you have to know that even if it wouldn´t work out, I´d still be there for you as a friend. What, do you seriously think I´d abandon you in all of this? I´d abandon anyone? You´re shaking your head, but you have to ask yourself whether you mean it. Do you really trust me to be that support? Because I will be, if you let me.” It was probably the most heartfelt speech Marcelo had delivered in a while, and while he would have laughed if the dialogue had played out in front of him on a screen, it all seemed deadly serious now. “Besides, it´d pain me just as much if you got hurt, and that´s not something you can avoid by not letting this-… us… happen.”

The Croat opened his mouth, but whatever he had been about to say was interrupted by the door slamming open. Both men flinched at the noise, and Isco stuck his head through the doorway.  
“There you are. Half the team is looking for you. What´s taking you so long?”

“Alright, alright, we´ll be right there” Luka told him, taking his phone back from Marcelo who realised he was still clutching it. “Thank you, Marcelo, you´ve given me a lot to think about. I´ll get back to you. I promise.” He followed Isco through the door, and Marcelo was left standing alone in an empty room with renewed hope and a heap of worries.


	2. Kick-off

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your kind words and kudos (whatever those are), you are awesome and this chapter is for you.

True to his word, Luka called him a few days after their talk. It was already afternoon, but Marcelo pounced at his suggestion to continue their conversation at home, with Luka offering to drive over. They lived in different parts of the city, both in relative proximity to the training ground, and Marcelo had enough time to ensure his apartment looked presentable before his friend rang the doorbell.

“I have given your proposal some thought” Luka stated when Marcelo opened the door, and the Brazilian snorted.

“Why, hello to you as well, please do come in, how was your day so far?”

Luka stepped past him, shrugging off his coat in the process. “Sorry, I have a one-track mind. You´ll have to get used to it.”

That sounded more than promising, but Marcelo didn´t want to press the issue so soon. He waited until they were both seated comfortably on his couch to dig deeper. “Sooo. What´s the verdict? Am I gonna die a lonely spinster, or do I get my chance?”

“We are going to do this” Luka said dryly and threw him a punitive glance, but his eyes were dancing. “I really believe that we can both benefit from this. No, that doesn´t sound right. It´ll be good for the both of us. But!” He lifted a warning finger. “Before we get any further, I´d like to clear a few things up.”

“Go ahead” Marcelo nodded brightly, resting his chin on propped up fists.

“I don´t want to make this public. At least not yet. It will be difficult, but not impossible. Telling our families and some friends is alright. The team´s probably going to notice right away that something changed. I have faith that they´ll be discrete. But I´d really like to avoid the media-related scandal and attention that comes with it.”

“I agree. Next?”

“You´re having too much fun with this. Are you agreeing with me on principle?”

“No, no” Marcelo assured him with a challenging grin. “We´re on the same page, baby.”

Luka gave him an unimpressed look.

“Alright, alright, I´ll go easy on the nicknames. Go on.”

“There are still some things I´ll keep from you, not because I don´t trust you but because I find it difficult to share things.” Even while saying this, Luka tensed up, and Marcelo scooted closer to him.

“I get it. That´s fine with me. Luka, seriously. Not gonna be a problem. You don´t need to tell me everything, although I´m looking forward to get to know some new things.” He winked at the midfielder, but the older man was not done yet.

“And… I´d like to take this slow. We´ve known each other some time now, but we´re still unfamiliar with the relationship side of things, and I don´t know about you, but being with a guy is something new for me-…”

“For me as well” Marcelo threw in.

“Okay, so that´s just something I want to throw in for consideration.”

“No problem.” The defender took his hand and squeezed it. “You just tell me if anything makes you uncomfortable, and I´ll dial it down.”

“Thank you.” Luka returned the pressure gratefully, but when he kept staring at Marcelo, the Brazilian rubbed his chin.

“What´s up?”

“I´m done. I thought, we´ll let the rest come at us as we go along.”

“Thank God” Marcelo said and kissed him. It was only for a brief moment, really more of a peck. “I´m sorry” he muttered when Luka showed little reaction at first, “should I have waited? Shit, I didn´t warn you, right?”

“It´s fine” Luka told him, “we don´t have to take it _that_ slow. But if that was supposed to be our first kiss, I´ll have to dial down my expectations.”

Marcelo recognised a challenge when he heard one. He dove in again, and this time Luka had no reason to complain.

“You know what, Lukita, I don´t think I´ll ever fall for your trickery again” Marcelo announced when they finally parted a second time. “You are a wicked man.”

Luka lifted an eyebrow, but the gleam in his eyes betrayed his delight.

“And your chin is scratchy. You should let your beard grow a little, or maybe shave it all off.”

“Tell you what, I´ll shave it off if you get a haircut” Marcelo countered and grinned when Luka twirled a strand of brown hair between his fingers.

Marcelo took the opportunity to commit the moment to memory, marvelling at the details of the other´s face that he had never really noticed, such as the narrow slope of his aquiline nose or the small mouth that hid a surprising set of teeth.

“Why do you keep it that long anyway?”

“What, my hair?” Luka shrugged. “I don´t know. I didn´t really like all of it gone back when we won _La Decima_.”

“You looked like a little plucked chicken back then” Marcelo remembered fondly.

“Thanks. And you´re one to talk, your hair looks like it could fit two chickens in there.” Luka patted it down, smiling when Marcelo´s afro sprang right back up. “I can´t even pretend to imagine you without it.”

“It has its benefits” Marcelo observed, grabbing a handful of Luka´s hair and pulling him closer. This was a part he really liked about the new component of their relationship. Since they were already familiar with each other, there were less hurdles to cross, less bridges to build and more to enjoy on the spot.

Luka hummed through their third kiss and sat up straight, although he let Marcelo take control of the pace and intensity. His look of contentment after the defender had let go of him filled Marcelo with pride.

“You are so lovely” he breathed, tracing a side of Luka´s face with his fingertips. The midfielder tilted his head. “I mean it. Damn, you´re pretty.”

“Pretty?” Luka scowled, flicking a finger against Marcelo´s sensitive earlobe. “That´s not a word I´d use.”

“Sorry, but it´s true. You have to admit, you do kinda look… feminine. Just a liiiiittle bit like a woman. A beautiful woman, of course” Marcelo added as an afterthought, although it didn´t seem to cheer the Croat up. “The hair doesn´t help.”

“I´m going to get rid of it” Luka promised, face deadly serious, and Marcelo needed a few seconds to judge the level of sarcasm.

“No, you´re not.”

“Probably not” Luka admitted. “But I don´t appreciate the comparison. I´m not a woman.”

“I know, I know.” Belatedly, Marcelo realised what his words could have meant. “And I wouldn´t have you any other way. I just think it´s really hot. But, you know, I´ve never been genuinely interested in a woman the way I like you.”

“Hm.” Luka seemed to file this away for further consideration before Marcelo intercepted his thoughtful silence by throwing an arm around his shoulder.

“This is really nice.” He pressed another kiss to Luka´s neck.

“It is” confirmed Luka, returning the hug and throwing one leg over Marcelo´s to gain better access. Marcelo, acting on impulse, slung his arms around Luka´s waist and hauled him onto his lap, laughing when Luka inhaled sharply.

“How´s life up there?” the Brazilian asked cheekily, but his breath caught when Luka reached out to cup his jaw with slender fingers. The tender look on his face nearly brought tears to Marcelo´s eyes, and he would have averted his gaze but Luka did not let him.

“Thank you” Luka told him, and Marcelo had never seen him so unguardedly happy.

“No problem” Marcelo choked out, suppressing the wish to slap himself instantly. “If it´s alright with you, I´m gonna keep kissing you now.”

Luka was quicker, and as he smiled against Marcelo´s lips, the defender let himself forget about the world around them. No, was his last conscious thought for a while, thank you.

 

 

They did not tell the team immediately. A few weeks passed, and a few initial bumps on the road were overcome. Marcelo tried not to show off, but as cheesy as it sounded, he was watching the world with new eyes, and some of his newfound energy had to be let out. When he wasn´t spending time with Luka, he oozed happiness all over the training compound, and it didn´t take the others long to catch on that something must have happened. They couldn´t pinpoint the exact cause, although Marcelo was now regularly followed by suspicious eyes, not to mention the cameras during their few public training sessions.

Luka was subtler in his ways of dealing with their newfound relationship, but Gareth asked Marcelo one day whether he knew what was up with their friend. He had apparently gotten Luka to laugh at one of his atrocious jokes, something the Croat had never done before.

“It wasn´t just a giggle either, mate. He was _gone_ , I´m telling you. Ah, you don´t believe me. I should have gotten Karim to film it-…”

“No, I believe you” Marcelo assured him, not quite daring to ask for a retelling of the joke.

“He´s been happier too. I mean, how often do you see him smile? He´s usually too focused, but now it´s like someone´s-… pressed his humour button, I don´t know.”

Marcelo liked the sound of pressing Luka´s buttons.

“And you!” Gareth pointed an accusing finger at him. “Now you´re smiling as well. What´s _up_ with you people?”

“I don´t know, Gareth” Marcelo answered smugly, “maybe you should ask Luka.”

“I did! And you know what he said? ´I guess it was a really good joke´. No, it wasn´t! It was a terrible joke! Even I would have cringed at the punch line. Bloody bonkers you are, all of you.” He rummaged through his bag, shaking his head. Marcelo almost felt bad for him.

“I think we´re driving Gareth mad” he told Luka that evening when they were sitting together on his couch which had become a regular thing. “He thinks we´re too happy all of a sudden.”

“He´ll have to live with it.”

“Right. Hey.”

Luka looked up from where he was leaning against Marcelo, trying to fill in the blanks of some document. “What?”

“When are we gonna tell the others? You know?”

“Whenever you want.” Luka shrugged and turned back to his document, but Marcelo had a feeling the midfielder had his ears cocked. “There´s no need to wait.”

“What-… what do you think they´ll say?”

“What will they say? They´ll say, ´Damn you, Luka, for snatching away that hot piece of ass before anyone else´. And then they´ll congratulate me for being so sneaky.”

Marcelo snorted with laughter. Truth be told, he was nervous about letting their colleagues in on their relationship. He knew most of them well enough to be certain that none of them would take any issue. Most of them, that was the problem. When he had thrown himself into this thing, he had been so sure about what he wanted, and in the process hadn´t wasted a thought beyond surface-level implications.

“If one of them spills something, it´ll be on our heads.”

“Whoa there. If I didn’t know any better, I´d say you sounded paranoid just then.” Luka sat up, facing him with a knowing look in his eyes. “You don´t want to tell them.”

“No-… maybe not yet.”

“It´s alright, we don´t have to rush anything.”

“Just-… If the press catches on, we could face a shitstorm of epic proportions. We´d have to end our careers just to avoid the worst stuff. The team would probably be dragged down as well-…”

“Marcelo.” His friend laid a gentle hand on his thigh. “It´s fine.” Luka´s smile was reassuring, but his mouth gained a teasing edge as he went on. “I just thought it might be nice to be able to kiss you once in a while without having to scout the perimeter. At the training grounds, I mean.”

“That´s… Actually that´s-…” Marcelo´s mouth went dry as he imagined a normal training day, which was awesome, with the added bonus of exchanging affection. It all sounded very appealing, not having to hide from their close friends, claiming Luka as his in front of everyone.

“Take your time, think about it.”

“No.” Going with his gut feeling, Marcelo grabbed Luka´s hand. “We can-… Let´s do it. Tomorrow.”

“… Either your mind works even quicker than your mouth, or you completely disregarded what I just said. Take some time. You might reach the same conclusion anyway, but you´ll feel better about it, that much I can tell you.”

Marcelo deflated. “Okay.”

“That´s better” Luka praised him, patting his head in mock condescension. “Good boy.”

“Oh, I´ll show you who´s a good boy” Marcelo growled, using his greater weight to push Luka down onto the cushions. The Croat stared up at him from fathomless eyes, and Marcelo marvelled at how confident he still looked, caged between the arms of a larger man.

“Luka” he groaned, “you have no idea what I´d like to do to you right now.”

“You could tell me, and we´ll make the rest up as we go” Luka said, and the corners of his mouth curled suggestively. That little shit, Marcelo thought dizzily as the blood rushed from his head towards the more conveniently located regions of his body, he knows exactly what he´s doing to me.

“You´ll-… stay the night?” he asked to make sure his mind hadn´t played a prank on him. Luka reached up to slide a hand around his neck, pulling him down, and Marcelo had his answer.

 

As usual, he awoke to the sound of his alarm the next morning. There was no one next to him, and he had half a mind to write his memories off as a nice dream until he came down into the kitchen and almost stumbled over Luka rummaging through the fridge. Marcelo felt the smile on his face stretch impossibly wide, but his glee was cut short when he realised where his shirt from the previous day had gone.

“Hey” Luka greeted him, finally looking up and noticing the Brazilian blocking the doorway, “do you have any milk? Fresh, I mean, not the stuff in here.”

“Gah” said Marcelo, eyes glued to the elegant line of Luka´s neck. Marcelo´s shirt was nearly slipping off one of his shoulders, and as Luka absentmindedly tugged it upwards, Marcelo had to keep himself from jumping forward to drag it back down.

“Not a morning person, are you?” Luka´s head disappeared into the fridge again. Marcelo took a deep breath, the surge of-… something calmed somewhat by the midfielder´s matter-of-fact attitude.

“Depends on the morning” he grabbed a glass, filling it with water and draining it in one large gulp. “I think this one´s off to a good start, though.” When Luka was too distracted by the contents of his fridge to react to what he had intended as a compliment, Marcelo poked his side, snorting at the ensuing flinch from his friend.

“Don´t do that.” Luka shot him a betrayed look, but its effect was dampened by the eggs he was trying to balance on one hand. “Are these still good?”

“How should I know?”

“It´s your fridge.”

“Well, I don´t keep track of everything in there.”

Luka shook his head, standing back upright and closing the refrigerator almost reverently. Once more, Marcelo was treated to the sight of his shirt hanging off the tiny Croat´s shoulders, and this time, he was unable to hide his reaction, judging by Luka´s sudden stop.

“What?”

“What, what?”

“You´re staring, Marcelo. It´s weird.”

“What, so I can´t stare at my partner now?”

“Not while you´re supposed to help make breakfast, no.” Luka nodded pointedly towards the coffee maker, frowning when Marcelo made a step towards it without actually taking his eyes off of him.

“ _What_?”

“You´re, uh, wearing my shirt.”

Luka glanced down. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“First thing I found. And it´s not like mine´s still good to use. Remember yesterday?”

“Oh.” Marcelo scratched his chin guiltily. He had been very enthusiastic. “I´ll buy you a new one.”

“No need.” Luka turned towards his eggs, carefully cracking one on the edge of a bowl. “That´s the reason for your incessant staring?”

“… Yes.”

“I´m sorry. I would have asked if it was alright with you, but you were still sleeping. I didn’t want to wake you up.”

“I didn´t-… Of course you can-…” Marcelo wanted to say something more coherent, but when Luka bent down to sniff the egg, presumably to judge whether it was still palatable, Marcelo got another good look at the curve of his narrow shoulders and swallowed. “Don´t do that.”

“Oh? Do you want food poisoning from that egg? Because I don´t.”

“No, that´s not-… Argh. I guess what I´m trying to say is-… That´s really hot. Like, _really_.” Alright, he probably wouldn´t win literary awards for this one, but Luka turned to him and he counted that as a success.

“The shirt?”

“ _No_ , dumbass, how can a shirt be-… I mean you wearing that shirt.”

“I see. I wasn´t sure what you meant.” To Marcelo´s astonishment, he turned back to his egg. “That´s nice.”

“ _Nice_?” Marcelo decided it was time to step up his game. Since compliments didn´t get him very far, perhaps the direct approach would be more warmly received.

“Maybe you didn´t understand me” Marcelo stepped behind him, snaking his arms around Luka´s waist and laying his chin on the shoulder he had previously admired. “I´m saying that the sight of you in my shirt is the most beautiful thing I´ve ever seen.”

“Really” Luka patted his wrist, reaching for another egg with his free hand, “I guess you don´t see many beautiful things then.”

Marcelo stepped back, grabbing Luka´s shoulders and forcibly turning him around, ignoring the Croat´s shout as he nearly dropped the egg in his hand. “Don´t say that” he pleaded, his stomach turning uncomfortably under Luka´s wide-eyed stare. “I´ve seen plenty. But there´s nothing that makes me feel like this.”

“That´s… new.” Luka was looking more uncomfortable by the second, and Marcelo would have found it absurdly cute if the way the midfielder deflected compliments wasn´t so depressing.

“Look at you” he breathed instead, clasping his fingers around Luka´s upper arms. “I love that you are small and kinda pretty and yet deadly on the pitch. How you always look confused when you´re really the only one with an idea of what´s going on. You move like personified precision and I can´t get enough of it. I stare at you because it makes me happy.”

He kissed Luka, noticing with glee that his friend´s cheeks were considerably warmer than before.

“Also horny” he added as an afterthought. “The shirt´s too much, I think.”

“Way to ruin the mood” Luka said after a moment, “although your compliments have improved considerably.”

“All from the heart, dude” Marcelo told him earnestly, placing his hands on Luka´s waist and holding onto him when the Croat started to turn around. “Woah, what are you doing? Don´t I deserve at least a kiss or something?”

Luka waved his egg at him but gave him an obliging peck on the lips, patting his cheek after they had separated. “Breakfast first. And don´t forget the coffee.”

“Right.” Still, Marcelo found it difficult to keep his hands to himself and even more so to stop staring at the older man.

“You must _really_ like this shirt.” Luka shook his head when Marcelo almost burnt his fingers trying to feel his way around the coffee pot.

“No-… Don´t talk to me. Don´t even look at me.” Marcelo made a great show of covering his eyes. “I will find a way to deal with this.”

Luka brushed against him on his way to the table, leaving Marcelo peeking through the gaps between his fingers. “On second thought, I think I´ll be able to live with it.” He followed the Croatian, putting his cheek against the slope of his shoulder. Luka took another step, and Marcelo felt his muscles shift under the warm expanse of skin to which he was connected. It felt comfortable, despite his awkward stance.

“Marcelo, I get the point, and I´m flattered, but this isn´t a good time” Luka said, keeping still in spite of his admonishment. “We´re due for training in another hour, and I haven´t had coffee yet.”

However, the Brazilian was not ready to let go of him. “Well, you shouldn´t have taken my shirt then.”

“How was I supposed to know you´d react like that?” Luka threw his hands in the air, squishing Marcelo´s face in the process. Rubbing his cheeks, the defender pushed Luka towards the kitchen table and sat on a chair, pulling Luka down with him.

“Alright. You want breakfast, I want to be close to you. So why not kill two birds with one stone?”

Luka peered down at him, shifting on Marcelo´s lap experimentally. “You want me to sit on you the whole time? That´s not very practical.”

“Ugh, Luka, it´s not about being practical.” Marcelo slung an arm around his waist and shook him briefly. “Trying to be romantic here.”

“Ah.” The Croat sighed and pressed a kiss on Marcelo´s forehead. “I guess that’s acceptable. Just don´t get in the way of me and my toast.”

Marcelo grinned, feeling like he should be more exasperated at Luka´s utter lack of sensibility regarding the finer nuances of a romantic relationship and not caring one bit. He allowed Luka to get his food and a cup of coffee for them both, settling down in contentment when the midfielder plopped on his lap again.

“Do you want to swap?” Luka asked him when Marcelo tried to shift his legs reaching for his cup.

“What, me sitting on you? Thanks, but I´d rather not break anything important of yours and cause the entirety of our fans to be out for my blood” Marcelo teased him, well aware that Luka was not as frail as he looked.

Apparently, Luka had no such qualms, kicking his heel back against Marcelo´s leg and not bothering to hide his look of vindicated satisfaction when the younger man whined in surprise. “I´m not that small.”

“You really are” Marcelo wheezed, soothing the sore spot on his shin with his free hand.

Luka thought for a moment, smirking as he went for a new approach. “Maybe you´re just too heavy.”

“Are you calling me fat? You are calling me fat!” Marcelo accused him with thinly veiled glee. “First you criticise my food, then you kick me, and now this! I will not take this abuse anymore, you-… evil little pixie.”

“Very dramatic, I´m impressed” Luka conceded, reaching for his toast, but Marcelo quickly shoved the plate further up the table.

“I have suffered enough” he declared and dove in for a kiss, only to be stopped short by a hand on his face.

“I´m still eating” Luka informed him, gasping when Marcelo grabbed him by the hips and stood up, moving them both towards the couch. “What are you doing?” He looked affronted at being manhandled like that, and Marcelo wanted to kiss him senseless right then.

“Getting you away from your food. It´s distracting you from me” Marcelo told him instead, seamlessly sinking into the cushions, mirroring their pose from before. Luka was visibly torn for a moment before his face melted into a mischievous grin.

“Shameless.” He tilted Marcelo´s head to give him the kiss the defender had been denied earlier, and then a few more until he drew back from the dazed man, bending to whisper into his ear, eyes twinkling dangerously. “You know what I´m going to do now?”

“Hm?” Marcelo leaned in expectantly, gaping when Luka climbed off his lap.

“I´m gonna eat my toast. And you, get ready, we have to leave in ten minutes. I´m not risking a lecture from Zizou.”

Marcelo groaned, falling back on the couch. “I hate you, Luka” he whined, “why are you doing this to me?” There was no reply, Luka being too busy cramming the rest of his bread into his mouth and disappearing up the stairs. It was going to be a frustrating day of work, Marcelo realised before remembering something else.

“Wait-… What are you going to do without a shirt?”

“I have a shirt” echoed the reply from somewhere vaguely above his head.

“No, _no_ , you are _not_ going to work like this” Marcelo pointed dramatically at Luka when the Croat hurried back down, grabbing his phone from the table. “You´re killing me here, dude!”

“It´s not like I have a lot of options” Luka pointed out. “Besides, I´ve got some clothes in my locker, I can change when we get there.” He waved his hands impatiently at Marcelo, a few damp strands of hair plastered across his forehead and curling around his ears. With difficulty, Marcelo managed to tear himself from the image and finish his morning routine.

“Just you wait, I´ll get you next time” he grumbled to himself, wiping a smudge of tooth paste from the bathroom sink. Luka might have won the first round, but Marcelo was never one to back down from a challenge.


	3. Play the Game

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You´ll notice that I don´t take this story too seriously, although things won´t be quite as upbeat from chapter IV onwards. For now, I hope you enjoy my shameless self-indulgence.
> 
> I would also thank everyone who left words of their own which are always the greatest gift. You are wonderful people.

Marcelo had discovered quickly that Luka was not the type for elaborate eulogies. He accepted Marcelo´s flattering remarks with more or less grace but rarely offered a compliment of his own. Instead, he chose to channel his affection through gestures. The Brazilian didn´t know how his friend always, always knew when something was bothering him, but he did, and he never failed to take him aside and pry the reason out of him. Often enough, a hug (or a surreptitious kiss) suspended the issue at hand, and on one memorable occasion, when all else had failed, Luka had shamelessly wrestled permission to leave early out of their coach and taken him home, never so much as flinching at the tight grip Marcelo had on his arm when they left. It had been a particularly frustrating day, and Marcelo was appalled at himself for wishing to be left alone, recognising his friend´s efforts to get him home. When Luka excused himself at his doorstep on his own volition, turning back towards his car, Marcelo shoved aside his suspicion that Luka could actually read minds and took the gift of solitude, spending the evening on his couch with a mixture of relief and longing.

He had felt understood then, closer to the midfielder than ever before, though not by much. It felt a little like a friendship with benefits, Marcelo mused, and was it really supposed to be this easy? He couldn´t remember a relationship with such easy reciprocity in his life.

He was forcibly reminded of this moment of contemplation only a few weeks later, and the word “easy” suddenly did not seem to apply anymore. As events started to pile on top of each other and gained a life of their own, his life suddenly became a whole different level of complicated, and it started with a new project.

 

 

“We are doing _what_?” Sergio was sure his ears were playing a cruel trick on him. “Say again.”

“It´ll bring us back to the front pages. God knows we could use some publicity right now” the marketing guy told him patiently, and Sergio resisted the urge to throttle someone.

“That´s the dumbest thing I´ve heard all year, and I´ve watched Mourinho´s press conference after United´s Champion´s league disaster.”

“How´s that even supposed to work?” Gareth asked sceptically. “Where are we gonna find the time?”

“Since the club has chosen not to enter into the Super Cup this year, time is not an issue.”

“Hang on” Chris interjected. He had been unusually quiet after the announcement. “You mean to tell us we´re supposed to perform in-… what, a _play_?”

“We´re going to edit it into a video, but essentially, yes. I don´t think it´ll be too much of a stretch for any of you – after all, the football pitch is just a different kind of stage.”

“I refuse” Karim spoke up darkly, “I will not participate in such a ridiculous event.”

“Well, we certainly can´t force you, but there _is_ the issue of the starting positions for the squad next season, and surely putting up with a bit of innovative advertising would put you in a favourable light. However, if anyone wants to pull out now…”

Nobody moved a muscle. Karim still looked like he wanted to argue, but Zidane was known for his unorthodox methods. It wasn´t difficult to imagine him behind this unexpected proposal.

“What are we supposed to perform?” In contrast to his colleagues, Marcelo seemed to jump at the idea. He was eagerly leaning forward, bursting with energy and ready for what shaped up to be a hilarious experience.

“Oh, you wouldn´t have heard of it. Some kind of modern play. It was adapted to fit the whole football theme, and the classics tend to require an even more… diverse group of participants. Since you all roughly fall into the same category, we will still have to improvise a bit.”

“Improvise?” Sergio inquired faintly, struggling to accept what his ears were telling him.

“Some of you will have to play up their age for the more mature roles.”

“That´s certainly doable-…”

“And…” The man hesitated briefly, obviously steeling himself for the next bit. “We´ll need a volunteer for the female lead.”

“ _What_?” the group exclaimed collectively, “no way.” Some started to shake their heads wildly, while others did their best to melt into their lockers.

“I don´t think you´re going to be asked to do it” Marcelo whispered to Pepe, one of the head-shakers. Pepe growled at him, but he could not quite hide his relief.

“We have selected the most… compatible players, but they can decline if they´re too uncomfortable doing this.”

“So, who do you think should be doing this?” Sergio was almost hysterical at that point.

“We´d prefer if either Marco-…” the man in question looked up, startled, “or Luka could take over.”

Cris snorted before either of the other two could react. “Marco is way too tall. If I´m gonna be the main man” and there really was no question about it, “I´ll get a say in this. Luka, you´re up.”

The Croat shrank back. “Hang on, you can´t just-…”

“He´s right” Marcelo piped up. “You´re the perfect choice. Sorry, Lukita, but I don´t see anyone else pulling this off.”

“Yeah.” Gareth thumped Luka´s back, retracting his hand quickly when the midfielder shot him a betrayed look. “You already look the part. Besides, you´re probably the only one of us who could fit in a dress.”

“Dress?” Luka shrieked, and his colleagues started to grin.

“You´re gonna be so adorable” Marcelo gushed, only half-joking.

“Come on, dude.” Cris stared at him with wide eyes, and Luka groaned. It was almost impossible to deny Cristiano anything when he gave you his most pitiful expression. “Don´t leave me hanging. Wait, we won´t have to, like, kiss or anything, right? Because I´m _so_ not signing up for that, no offence, Luka.”

“As if I´d want to kiss you.” Luka shook his head. “This is mad.”

“There won´t be any kissing” said the marketing man with a frown, “we are not trying to get _that_ kind of publicity.”

“See?” Cris turned back to Luka. “It´ll be a piece of cake.”

“Guys, that´s ridiculous. I´m not a girl-…”

Luka threw a desperate glance towards Isco who folded his arms defensively in front of his chest, and then started to turn to Lucas, but the young player ducked his head pitifully and Luka did not have the heart to call him out. They were the most likely candidates to ask next, and while Isco would have no problems declining the role, he feared that Lucas would feel pressured into accepting.

“Oh, alright then” Luka threw his hands up, and Lucas let out a huge sigh of relief. “But I´m not wearing a dress.” He raised an eyebrow at Marcelo´s disappointed noise.

“We´ll find a solution” the marketing guy promised Luka and clapped his hands together. “Alright, that´s about it, thank you for your willingness to participate. I´m sure you´ll warm up to the idea once we get you started. We´ll meet tomorrow, back here, to set you all up.” He excused himself and left, presumably to start the preparations for his project.

“I can´t believe this” Sergio balled his fists. “Who is responsible for this bullshit? I didn´t sign up for this!”

“Sese, don´t be a baby about this.” Marcelo punched his arm. “Trust me, this could be so much fun.”

“Fun, right” Luka grumbled, staring desolately at the ground.

“Oooh, you´re gonna be a hit, I know it.” Marcelo threw an arm around his shoulders. “The fans will _love_ this, trust me.”

 

 

It was not as bad as it could have been, Sergio mused when they were briefed on the play they would have to perform. Some kind of parody, which made it almost acceptable to him even though he was still uncomfortable with the idea. At least there was some football involved.

Marcelo volunteered to be the main character´s – meaning Cris´ - antagonist, which meant a lot of interaction with Luka as well. The Croat was deeply suspicious about Marcelo´s motives but could do little about it since nobody else dared to take a larger role. His hopes of the teasing being kept to a minimum dwindled quickly.

They had been given the scripted draft to read during their break. The team was plastered all over their meeting room in small groups, with occasional exclamations breaking the otherwise concentrated silence.

“Look at this” Sergio held out his script towards the others, pointing at a line.

“What page? I can´t read it from here” Marcelo complained, shuffling through his own text.

“I´m the grubby kiosk guy, right? But all I do is hang around Cris´ character and give him dumb advice.”

“That´s not so far off the truth.” Marcelo nodded sagely and dodged Sergio´s ensuing swipe.

“ _Don´t keep lying to yourself_ ” Sergio read out in a dramatic voice. “ _If you truly love her_ – I guess that´s you, Luka – _then you´ll have to toughen up_. Oh yeah, I could actually see me saying that.”

Marcelo began to laugh, waving the sheets in his hand. “God, this is going to be amazing. Cris, Luka, page 42.” His friends obligingly turned their pages towards the indicated scene.

“What, this?” Cris cleared his throat and began to deliver his text, his face and voice an iron mask of control.

“ _Don´t ask me to choose between you and my passion. Football is my life, but I cannot live without you_.”

Marcelo started to clap slowly, stopping when Luka opened his mouth.

“ _My… dear…, there´s no need to be afraid. I too love football. Why, where do you think I´ve been spending our weekends apart? I´m afraid I haven´t been entirely truthful with you. I told you I was at my sister´s, but I´ve been going to the Bernabeu all this time_.”

The Croat looked up at the sound of hysterical giggling. “Hm?”

“Dude, your voice” Marcelo snorted, “it´s way too deep for a girl. Also, you sound like a robot. You´re gonna have to start acting if you want to be convincing.”

Luka looked doubtful, but he resumed his reading. “ _Now-…_ ” he coughed and tried again, this time in a slightly higher voice, “ _now we both know the truth. Why, all this time we could have experienced our favourite sport together_.”

“ _Better late than never_ ” Cristiano nodded decisively, his look of intense focus almost sending Marcelo into another cackling fit. “ _I can think of nothing better than enjoying a seasonal ticket, especially affordable for couples and groups, together with you-_ … Well, that´s to the point. Who the hell writes this stuff? Anyway _. I also want to apologise for doubting your faithfulness. When you spent so much time with Rodrigo-…_ ”

“That´s me” Marcelo interjected helpfully before Cris glared him into submission.

“ _With Rodrigo, I thought you were leaving me for him_.”

“ _Love, I could never do that_ ” Luka read, “ _now let us hug to celebrate our emotional maturity despite having caused all of our own problems because we really are a couple of insecure idiots_.”

“Dude, you just made up that last part.”

“It´s true though, isn´t it? I think they should put that in” Gareth spoke in support of the Croat´s addition to the text.

“Anyway, we hug-… and that´s it, right?” Luka slapped the script down beside him.

“Well, I´m not watching you two practise your tongue technique.” Sergio pointed towards the two men in question with a warning finger. “You love birds better behave.”

“Pffft, they´ve barely any scenes” Marcelo told him. “They´re supposed to be the go-to couple, but I´m gonna break hearts with my confession scene. Luka, are you already at page 30?”

Luka shook his head, picking up his script again and groaning when his eyes flew over the lines. “Seriously?”

“Yup.” Marcelo motioned for him to stand, getting up himself. “Gimme your hand, we´ll do this properly.”

The midfielder stared at him, and Marcelo grabbed his hand impatiently, sighing when Luka snatched it back instantly, eyes darting around. “Dude, work with me here. I can´t act when you´re not following up.”

Luka held out his hand with a look of discomfort. “That´s good” Marcelo nodded approvingly while taking the hand in his own, “look at me. I´ll start.”

He glanced at his page before looking back towards Luka who leaned back surreptitiously. “ _I cannot hide my feelings anymore_ ” he recited dramatically, “ _nor do I want to keep living a lie. I have always loved you, Luka-…_ ”

“Don´t call him Luka” Gareth advised him with wide grin, although the Croatian looked strangely soft all of a sudden.

“Shit, right. _I have always loved you, Isabel. You are so passionate about football, that´s really attractive to a guy. You are also very hot._ ” He looked up expectantly, and Luka slowly inched his script towards his eyes.

“ _That´s really sweet, Rodrigo_ ” he said, “ _but I´m afraid my heart belongs to another._ ”

“ _Don´t tell me it´s that slimy douchebag-…_ ”

“Hey, that´s not in the script” Cristiano complained.

“Sorry, just trying to be emotive. _Don´t tell me it´s that other guy I saw with you yesterday._ ”

“ _It is. Javier is the one I love_ ” Luka told him, furrowing his brows when Cristiano blew a kiss in his direction. “ _You are a wonderful man, but I feel nothing but friendship towards you._ ”

“ _How can you break my heart like that?_ ” Marcelo grabbled at his own chest with his script-holding hand, paper rustling against his shirt. “ _Now there will be a bitter tinge to every_ blancos _game that I´m going to see, which is sweetened only by the exceptional price reduction for seasonal tickets of the coming season. But I´m still heartbroken._ ”

“I _´m sorry. But let us remain friends, united by our love for football as well as friendship that overcomes all other strife. Come here, my dear, and forget your troubles in our platonic embrace.”_ Luka hesitated and then lifted his free arm, stumbling a few steps back as Marcelo´s enthusiastic hug nearly bowled him over. He spat out a stray lock of hair and lifted his script to continue reading, voice muffled somewhat by Marcelo´s shoulder. “ _Is this not worth the pain?_ ”

“ _You soothe me with your kind words_ ” the defender spoke into his ear, “ _and if this is truly the way you feel, I will not stand in your way. I wish only for your happiness_.” He drew back slightly and lowered his head, glancing up at Luka impatiently when the Croat squinted at him in confusion. “Now kiss my head or something. C´mon, let´s give the crowd something to salivate over.”

Luka rolled his eyes and gave his forehead a quick peck. “That´s all you´re gonna get, _Rodrigo_ , don´t get ambitious. And you guys can shove it” he told their comrades who had begun to whistle at them.

“We´ve got that shit in the _bag_!” Marcelo pumped a fist into the air.

“Don´t tell me you´re actually enjoying this.” Luka rubbed his chin, eyeing the script doubtfully. “It´s not even well-written.”

“Aw, Lukita, don´t be such a wet blanket. The story´s kinda sweet, right?”

“It´s not very original” Luka stated blankly. “And there´s more overt advertising than anything else. I don´t see your point.”

“Man, we´ll never hear the end of it. I can already hear the Barca taunts” Sergio moaned, pulling a hand across his face.

“Regardless, we´ll do this like professionals” Cris told him, and his voice left no room for arguments. “All part of the job. We´ve done stuff like this before, remember? Think of it as another commercial.” He gave his friend a stern look. “I won´t have anyone doing less than their best.”

Sergio gave him a short nod. “Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

 

 

“-And now for the part where the kidnappers get Isabel to the van and drive off-…”

“You´ve got to be kidding me.” Luka mumbled, stabbing the producer with vengeful eyes. “This is probably the cheapest script in history.”

Marcelo nudged his side. “It… could be worse?” He did not seem so sure of that himself but tried to cheer up the midfielder anyway with an encouraging smile.

Casemiro, who had snatched up the role of the bad guy before anyone else could take it from him, was looking at his lines with concentration. “Okay, where do I go? Like, just grab Luka and get to the car? Or should I threaten him first? Do I get a weapon?”

“No weapons involved, I´m afraid. Keep to the script. We´ll make additions when necessary.” Casemiro deflated in disappointment, turning towards Luka with the script close at hand. For a moment, he looked like he wanted to back down from the Croatian´s sullen glare. Pulling himself together, he struck a confident pose.

“ _Now lady, you should know better than to try and expose my operation. You should have let me manage my bets in peace._ ”

“ _Never_.” Luka sighed. “ _I have proof of your illegal activities, and you´ll never find it. Tomorrow, your business will go down, so that football fans in all of Spain will enjoy a fair chance at placing bets_.”

“ _That´s where you are wrong_ ” Casemiro declared, walking up to Luka and, after a moment of hesitation, wrapping a hand around his wrist. “ _Surely you understand that I´ll have to stop you. Now come with me_.”

“ _Let me go_ ” Luka said gloomily, Marcelo putting a hand over his mouth to muffle his laughter.

“Mr Modrić, could you put a bit more emotion into your performance?” the director called out to him, waving his arms around to emphasize his point.

The midfielder repeated his last words in a marginally louder voice and made a half-hearted attempt to tug his hand out of Casemiro´s grip. The Brazilian started to drag him towards the spot where he was told the car would await them once they got to the real shooting, and their lacklustre shuffle served as a cause for amusement for the rest of the players gathered around. Cristiano was teetering on his toes, teeth gnashing together. He seemed on the verge of shouting instructions at them before the director cut in once more.

“Actually, why don´t we go full-out? Try to really _feel_ the scene. How would you feel if someone actually tried to kidnap you?”

Luka frowned at the question, but his unhappy face did not differ particularly from his usual expression. “I´d probably feel… afraid?”

“Yes. Afraid, confused… Imagine yourself in that situation. What would you do to prevent that from happening?”

“Kick the person in the gut and run away.” Casemiro sidled away from him as surreptitiously as possible.

“Okay. Can you _pretend_ to kick him when he tries to grab you? Of course, the scene ends with your capture anyway, but we want to make the spectators think you´ve really got a chance at getting away. Make it a fight, you know. Same goes for you” he added with a nod towards Casemiro.

“But I don´t want to get kicked” the Brazilian protested quickly, blinking when Marcelo shouted from a distance.

“Don´t be a baby. He´s tiny, what can he do to you?”

“Hey, I´ve got some sensitive equipment. What if he actually hits something important?”

“I´ll try not to hurt you too much” Luka promised with a smile, although there was an unsettling gleam in his eyes.

They went back to their starting positions and worked through the dialogue. This time, Casemiro made a point of rushing up to his colleague, and his first grab actually made the Croat flinch. He tried to drive an elbow into the larger man´s side but Casemiro easily evaded the attack, snatching his free arm as well. Luka continued to yank at the firm hold and almost broke free before the defender bent down on impulse, hooking an arm behind the other´s knees and throwing him over one shoulder. Luka gasped in surprise, reflexively clinging to the man´s shoulders to avoid falling off, and Casemiro used the opportunity to secure his grip.

Clapping broke them from their concentration, both looking towards the director who raised two thumbs at them. “So much better, guys. If you can repeat that in front of a camera, we´ll be done in no time!”

Even Cristiano was suitably impressed, clapping with the rest of his colleagues. Only Marcelo seemed more subdued all of a sudden.

“I still don’t like this” Luka said miserably, wriggling in the Brazilian´s grasp. Casemiro set him down carefully, ruffling Luka´s hair with fondness before finally letting go.

“Not bad” Pepe applauded them, stepping forward from his designated spot as one of Casemiro´s hired hitmen.

“Let´s take a breather, everyone” the director called out to them. “We´ll meet back here in twenty minutes. Get some coffee, read through your lines-…”

Sergio flopped to the ground with a groan of relief. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton wool. He tried to massage away the growing ache behind his forehead. All the concentration that he usually reserved for the physical alterations on the pitch had gone into the reading and delivering of crappy lines.

He craned his head to look for a group to join when his eyes fell on Marcelo. The defender was uncharacteristically serious as he tugged Luka towards a secluded corner of the room. They looked in desperate need of some privacy, which almost made Sergio feel bad about his attempt to creep up on them.

“-don´t have to do this-…”

“-not so bad. You´re over-…”

“-start feeling like-… -and I´ll get you out.”

Marcelo sounded concerned about something Sergio could not make out, but he noticed that Luka seemed awfully pale all of a sudden.

“Really, there´s no need to worry” Luka told Marcelo resolutely.

“Worry about what?” The question escaped Sergio before he realised he should have kept quiet to find out more. His friends turned towards him, frowning as they realised he was eavesdropping.

“Curiosity killed the cat, you know?” Marcelo did not sound particularly angry, but there was a wrinkle on his forehead that only appeared when he felt agitated about something. Sergio hoped it was caused by the topic of their conversation rather than him being nosy.

“Come on” Sergio pleaded, “don´t keep me hanging, guys.”

“Fat chance, Sese” Marcelo tried to shoo him away, “this doesn´t concern you.”

Now Sergio´s curiosity fully roared to life. Marcelo kept very little to himself, making a habit of oversharing many things of his life that the Spaniard could have done without knowing about.

“Tell me” he demanded, folding his arms stubbornly when the other two exchanged an inscrutable look. “Maybe I can help. There´s obviously something going on with you two.”

“It´s a private matter.” Marcelo was working himself up, and Sergio tried to remember the last time he had seen the Brazilian in such a bad mood. “You´re not our boss, you can´t order us around-…”

“But I am your friend.” Marcelo hesitated, and Sergio seized the chance. “Am I not allowed to worry about you?”

Instead of answering, Marcelo turned to Luka who had been quiet throughout their exchange. “Should we… I mean, only if you are comfortable-…”

Luka nodded slowly. “I have a feeling he´s gonna keep prying if we don´t tell him.”

Sergio silently cheered, although he kept his facial expressions to a minimum. “So what´s all the fuss about?”

His fuzzy-haired friend leant closer, and Sergio reciprocated the movement, baffled. “Luka´s had some weird stuff sent his way over the past few months, and there have also been threats lately. Like, kidnapping threats. This project? Maybe it´s hilarious for you guys, or maybe you don´t like the idea, but trust me, this is more difficult for him.”

“I´m here, Marcelo. Don´t talk about me like I´m not in the room.”

“Sorry.” Marcelo bumped Luka´s shoulder with his own, smiling weakly when Luka made a face at him.

“Hold on, are you fucking serious?” Sergio´s thoughts fizzled to a halt before launching off with double-speed. “Why didn´t I know about this? Wait, why did _you_ hear this before me?”

“I´m just way more perceptive than you, dude.” Marcelo shrugged and gave Luka a significant look. The Croat inclined his head, and his friend seemed to take it as some kind of confirmation, because he suddenly turned serious again.

“Actually, there´s a good reason for that. But before I tell you, you´ve got to promise to keep an open mind. Yeah?”

“Alright, yeah, whatever. Out with it.” Sergio flicked his fingers impatiently, freezing when Marcelo looked around and, after checking that nobody else´s attention was on them, took up Luka´s hand and held it up demonstratively.

“We´re-…”

“Together? No. Fucking. Way” Sergio breathed, more amazed that they had actually kept it secret than surprised. In retrospect, he could have easily seen it coming if he had paid more attention.

“Wow, you´re quick on the uptake.” Marcelo raised an eyebrow, looking more confident than he probably felt (which was Sergio´s guess, because if he was in the other´s shoes, he would be terrified right now). He hurried to think of some reassuring words.

“Uh, that´s great, and… all. Congratulations. Who else knows about this? I´m not the last guy to know, right? Right?”

“No, you´re the first, actually” Marcelo informed him, and Sergio´s faith in him was restored.

“Thank God, that would´ve been embarrassing, you know. I´m the Captain, I´m supposed to know these things. But…” He winced as a myriad of questions warred for dominance in his mind. “Why?”

“Why?” the Brazilian echoed in disbelief, and Sergio privately admitted that it was probably one of the dumber things to ask.

“No, what I meant was… Holy cow, let me process this. Shit, that´s a lot to take in. Okay, you guys are in a relationship-…” The other two nodded encouragingly, which calmed Sergio somewhat, until he remembered something else Marcelo had mentioned before. “And Luka´s getting threats of some sort-… Have you been to the police?”

“Yes” Luka said quietly, “but they cannot help a lot. They say it´s part of being a person with a public life. There´s also not very much for them to go on, evidence-wise.”

“Dude, that sucks” Sergio exclaimed loudly before Marcelo hissed at him to lower his voice.

“This whole thing may be just an unfortunate coincidence which doesn´t exactly help.” Marcelo kicked the wall behind him before taking a deep breath.

“Okay, but, Luka, are you sure you want to do this? If it bothers you that much-…”

“I was just surprised, that´s all” Luka said defensively. “You try staying calm when Casemiro rushes at you full force.”

“That´s why I´m glad he´s on our side.” Sergio grinned, relieved that the Croat had returned to his unflappable self. “He is a force of nature.”

“Still, we could tell him to dial it down a bit” Marcelo suggested. “Or change the scene entirely.”

“I´m not sure the director would go for that.”

“Guys, it´s fine” Luka interrupted them, “the less we change, the faster we´ll be done, right?”

Marcelo frowned, but their break was declared over in that moment and he did not get a chance to discuss his opinion on the matter any further.

 

 

They were told to regroup on the next day for the first part of the shooting. It was an ungodly hour to meet up in Sergio´s opinion, and he did not envy the busy crew already bustling about the scene when he arrived. Equipment and cables lay strewn around. A few of his colleagues were already gathered in the costume room, some in the process of being transformed into their respective roles.

“Nice” he snorted when Cris strutted towards him in an ensemble of clothes that were just a shade off unfortunate. “Your tastes have clearly improved.”

“Don´t you start” Cristiano balled a fist at him. “They won´t even let us pick our own _shoes_.”

“Okay there, Crissie, no need to go all girl on me.”

Coincidence or not, his eyes fell upon two of their friends standing next to each other and leafing through a rack of clothing. “Whoah. Is that Luka?”

“Right? Poor guy.”

Sergio pulled Cristiano with him to join Luka and Marcelo, staring at the former with a mixture of pity and glee. He clearly had endured some handywork from the theatre crew. The Croatian´s slim stature was clad in a loose shirt and a pair of dark trousers to accentuate his androgyne features, his hair curling wildly around his head.

The Spaniard was impressed until Luka shoved a sleeve of his shirt upwards to scratch a spot on his arm, the gesture ultimately destroying the vision of femininity that had greeted Sergio from the corner of his eyes. Still, he was amazed at how little effort the whole look had taken to actually work.

“Not bad, Lukita” he teased the midfielder whose shoulders tensed when he heard the two men approach. Clearly having had to endure some teasing already, he turned up his nose at them, choosing to ignore his team mates. Unperturbed, Sergio continued, never one for passing up opportunities when they were presented to him on a silver tablet. “Petition for you to keep that look. It might distract our opponents during the next matches.”

“Hey, don’t kick a man when he´s down” Marcelo told him, earning himself a deadpan glance from Sergio.

“Like you haven´t already risen to the occasion.”

“… I _may_ have made a comment or two.”

Luka glared at him, and the feral look in his eyes clashed with his wispy appearance.

“Okay, maybe more. But I´ve been very supportive!”

“You said I looked like a woman from that English series you´ve been into recently.”

“Edith, yeah, it´s kinda… You have to admit-…”

“And you tried to convince the director to get me in a dress.”

“It´s art, you´ve got to make some sacrifices.”

“Twice.”

“Come on, dude, take one for the team-…”

“You two are hilarious” Cris interrupted them impatiently, “but can we focus for a second? We´ll start shooting in ten minutes, and we´re up first, Luka. I´m still not sure about this part-…” As he drew the Croat aside to point out something on his script, Sergio leaned conspiratorially towards Marcelo.

“A dress? Really?”

“I think it would be cute. He´ll never go for it though.”

“Would you?”

“Hell no.”

“Then why not let it go?”

Marcelo just lifted his eyebrows before trotting off after Cris and Luka, leaving Sergio briefly questioning the probability of two people like his friends getting involved despite their glaring differences in attitude and demeanour. Although he loved Marcelo as a good friend, he wondered how Luka put up with him on a daily basis. He had to be getting something out of this, but Sergio did not want to contemplate the finer aspects of their relationship.

He was disrupted from his thoughts by a frazzled woman tugging him towards the changing rooms. His costume did not seem to require much preparation, and he noticed with satisfaction that his outfit was much closer to his regular style than Cris´ monstrosity.

Meanwhile, Marcelo had secured a spot with a good view of the scenes they were about to capture on camera. His pants were clinging uncomfortably to his calves, and as he tried to adjust them, another voice next to him spoke up.

“Don´t bother, that´s not gonna help much.” Gareth had sat down beside him, his gaze directed towards the stage where Cris and Luka were trying to find their positions. The Croat was staring at his feet, shuffling around anxiously and visibly forcing down his arms every time they travelled upwards towards where his face had to be itching under the unfamiliar layer of cosmetic paint. He did look lovely, Marcelo mused, and awfully convincing from afar, even though the director was by now contemplating the amount of make-up needed for the close-ups, and Luka´s face contorted into a mask of horror.

“Enjoying the show?” Gareth hummed awkwardly, apparently put off by Marcelo´s lack of reaction before. The Brazilian huffed in response, surprised when the Welshman continued. He was not usually this loquacious.

“It´s pretty damn entertaining so far, don´t you think? Even though the script is complete rubbish, of course. But the idea itself isn´t so bad.”

“Sure” Marcelo said lazily, keeping his eyes on the two players struggling through their lines. Since none of them were particularly adept at remembering more than a few blocks of text at a time, the script had been substantially reduced. They were also allowed to improvise during the more difficult parts. “What are you playing again?”

“I´m supposed to be the homeless guy. You know, witness to the kidnapping and all that.”

“Very original.”

“Not a big part. You´ll get the glory in this one, along with Cris and Luka, of course.” Marcelo glanced at him, wondering if he had heard resentment in Gareth´s tone, but the striker was smiling faintly.

“It´s kinda funny.”

The Brazilian narrowed his eyes in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Cris is doing well, but I think they could have chosen a better man for the main part.”

“What, who?”

Gareth raised an eyebrow and stared at him pointedly.

“Me?” Unexpected as this vote of confidence came for Marcelo, he wondered why Gareth chose to mention this now. “You think so?”

“Yeah. You´ve got a knack for it, I suppose. Plus, you´ve got great chemistry with Luka.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

“Speaking of whom, how´s Luka these days?”

Marcelo frowned. “Why ask me and not him?”

“You two are very close, I´ve realised that in the past few weeks. And you might give me a more honest answer. I mean, you must have noticed how much he loves deflecting personal questions.”

“He´s fine, I suppose” Marcelo told him. “If you don´t count this.” He gestured towards their friends who were in the process of orchestrating the most awkward hug Marcelo had ever seen between them. The cameras were clearly doing a number on them both, even if Cristiano in particular would scoff at the notion.

“You have a point there.” Gareth looked torn between laughing and grimacing in pity, watching the Croat disentangle from Cris. “I wouldn´t want to be humiliated like this.”

“He´ll see it that way, too, but I don´t think he should feel humiliated” Marcelo said sharper than he had originally intended. “Takes some fucking guts, honestly.”

“Hey, I´m not saying he should.” Gareth lifted his hand defensively. “Bad choice of words, I´ll admit. But it´s good to see you stepping up for him.”

Marcelo nodded shortly, blinking at the former Tottenham player´s next question.

“I´m-… sorry, maybe I´m overstepping here, but is there anything… between the two of you that you could share?”

“Between us? Like what?” Maybe Gareth really was more perceptive than Marcelo gave him credit for. The striker stared ahead, not quite daring to meet Marcelo´s eyes as he continued.

“You´ve been really joined at the hip recently. And it´s true that I haven´t seen as much of Luka, but he talks a lot about you when we meet up but nothing concrete. I´m trying not to make any assumptions here, mind. Just… he´s been kinda happy? But on edge, too, and I don´t think Luka would tell me if there was anything… _more_ … and I don´t know how else I´m supposed to find out if anything´s wrong.” He ducked his head awkwardly, and Marcelo was overcome with a sudden fondness for the younger man when he realised his intentions.

“You want to make sure he´s alright.” Gareth shrugged, eyes flickering towards Marcelo who threw an arm around his shoulders. He suddenly remembered that Luka had known Gareth for far longer than himself, and their friendship had endured over their respective transfers.

“Aww, so sweet. I´m sure Luka will appreciate the concern.”

“Hang on, don´t-…”

“Tell him? Aren´t you two best friends or something? Why keep quiet about this? Especially if you want to know about how he´s doing?”

“Dude, that´s not… that´s not how we do things, okay?”

“What, share stuff? How English of you.”

“I´m not English” Bale growled, although he did not move away from Marcelo´s hug.

“I know, I know. Alright, if you want to know so badly, I think I´ll let you in on a little secret. But don´t spread it around because I´d have to tell Lukita to beat you up, okay?”

Gareth grinned at the mental image, leaning closer to let Marcelo whisper into his ear. He pulled back before Marcelo had finished his explanation.

“You´re a _couple_? Are you serious? I can´t believe you didn´t tell me. Us. Anyone.”

“Well, Sergio knows-…”

“Of course.”

“Since yesterday, calm the fuck down.”

All in all, the Welshman took the news almost as well as Sergio, up to the point when Marcelo informed him about the stalker situation. Gareth nearly threw a fit when he realised that his friend had kept so much from him.

“Unbelievable.” He balled his right hand to a fist. “I must´ve been _fucking_ blind.”

“Don´t beat yourself up too much about this. You said it yourself, sharing is not your thing, and when Luka sets his mind on playing it cool, you sure as hell can bet he will. Dodgy little motherfucker.”

“Watch your tongue, Marcelo.” Both players looked up in alarm before Marcelo let go of Gareth´s shoulder to pat the space between them and invite Luka who had apparently finished the scene to sit down.

“As if you understood that. Since when do they teach this kind of Spanish in language school?”

“I don´t need a teacher to recognise you swearing.” Luka rubbed his eyes, and exhaustion was already settling into his features despite the early hour.

“Luka!” Gareth gave him an indignant shove, and the Croatian bumped into Marcelo´s side. “What the fuck?”

“What, what´s wrong?”

“Nothing much, except you didn´t tell me about a bunch of _bloody vital stuff_ I´d really have liked to know about.”

“Stuff?” Luka glanced over to Marcelo, and when the Brazilian inclined his head, he sighed. “Ah.”

“Yes, _ah_.”

“Don´t sulk” Luka told him, sounding to Marcelo like an exasperated father, “it doesn´t suit you.”

“I´m not-… sulking, it´s just-… what the hell, man?” Gareth looked tempted to slap his friend to get his point across before deciding against it. “That´s _bad_.”

“So… I take it you don´t approve?”

“ _Of course_ I don´t, why would I… That´s the worst thing I´ve heard all day. Scratch that, all year.”

“Well, I´m sorry you feel that way, but it doesn´t really make a difference. If you are uncomfortable with our relationship, maybe you should hang back a little and think because that´s not going to change-…”

“What? I wasn´t talking about you and Marcelo. I´m down with that, alright? Bit of a shocker, but I´ll get used to the idea. No, I´m talking about that… stalker of yours.”

“… So you´ve heard about that, too.” Luka narrowed his eyes at Marcelo who nodded sheepishly. “No need to panic yet. The only thing I´ve got are a couple of letters and other stuff. He´ll probably lose interest at some point.”

“I don´t think so.” Gareth shook his shoulder urgently, frowning when Luka slapped his hand away, obviously not appreciating the rough treatment. “What if it gets worse? Then what? What are you-… we-… going to do about this?”

“That´s my problem, isn´t it? And only _if_ something happens. Don´t get so upset over this.” Luka seemed determined to calm the Welshman down, but his words had the opposite effect on his friend who resumed shaking him.

“I´m _worried_ , you moron. We are still friends. Even if you are the most stubborn, insulated idiot I´ve seen in my life.”

“Giving him whiplash won´t help the situation” Marcelo intervened, looping his arms around Luka to push Gareth away. “But I agree with the Highlander” he said before the striker could retaliate, subsequently drowning out Gareth´s sullen complaint about not being Scottish, either. “We have a right to worry. Plus, you´re not fooling me, not after yesterday. You are not okay with this, either.”

“… No, I´m not. Of course not” Luka conceded after a moment, and Marcelo wanted nothing more than kiss away the worried lines around his mouth. He settled for a hug instead, and Luka leaned into him wearily.

“Uh… director says you have to come, Gareth.” The trio looked up to where Mateo had halted a few steps away from them. “Is everything alright?” he asked uncertainly.

“Yes, thank you, Mateo.” Luka gave his compatriot a reassuring smile and slipped out of Marcelo´s hold on him. “Gaz, good luck. And we´ll talk later.”

Gareth saluted him, clearly glad to delay the conversation, and walked off towards the stage. Mateo hesitated before asking something in Croatian, upon which Luka gave him a put-off look, eyes flickering towards Marcelo. The two Croats exchanged a few more words before Marcelo poked his friend sharply.

“Rude. Feeling left out over here?” He liked Mateo, he really did, but that boy got starry-eyed whenever he spent time with Luka. Marcelo knew it was nothing more than hero-worship; still, he felt that twinge of jealousy.

“You´ll survive” Luka decided, giving his hair a quick tug and unfolding from his seat. “Now who´s up for some coffee?”


	4. Teamwork

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I am very grateful for everyone who is gracious enough to share their thoughts (even though I don´t always reply, which mostly depends on how tired I am when I read your comment, but I can assure you that every word brightens my day).
> 
> Our protagonists are in for some uncomfortable discoveries as we approach the story´s apex.

They were allowed to leave eventually, when the daylight was already tinged with the burnt shades of a late summer evening. More often than not, Luka went home with Marcelo, and this time was no exception. They did not speak much during the car ride, both getting used to the sudden absence of the buzz that had accompanied them during the day. Only when Marcelo switched off the engine did he turn to Luka. “Dinner in or out?”

“In” Luka said, “I´m too tired to read a menu.”

Marcelo stopped short on their way to his door. “What´s that?”

“Huh?”

“On the steps. Hang on.” Someone had left a package in front of his entrance, and Marcelo bent down to inspect it.

“Maybe you shouldn´t-… Oh, okay. Right. Good.” Luka grimaced when the Brazilian picked the parcel up gingerly.

“Don´t sweat it, could be just mail.”

“I think your postman needs a raise.”

“Ha ha.” Marcelo shook the thing in his hands experimentally. “C´mon, let´s get inside.”

Once he had kicked his shoes off, he abandoned the package on the kitchen table, and it slipped from both their minds for a moment until Marcelo scuffled past it on the way to get a glass of water from the tab. He grabbed it and fiddled with the tape until Luka, fed up with his struggle, rummaged through a few drawers and handed him a pair of scissors.

“I guess it could be the phone charger I ordered last week-… It´s not. But what-…? What?” He lifted his hand to hold up what looked like a crumpled wad of cloth at first glance and revealed itself to be a glove of some sort. A letter accompanied the item as well, and as Marcelo tore open the envelope, Luka snatched the glove to look it over.

“Just one. That´s not very useful.”

“Hang on, this says… Oh.”

Luka´s head snapped up at the note of alarm that had crept into Marcelo´s voice. “What? What does it say?”

“It´s-… Shit, Luka, I think it´s from your stalker.”

The Croat tore the letter from Marcelo´s grasp, almost ripping it in half. “No.” As his eyes wandered over the lines, his shoulders hunched up, and Marcelo laid a stabilising hand against his arm.

“ _Sranje_ ” Luka said faintly, and Marcelo wordlessly nudged him into a chair, taking the battered piece of paper back to take another look.

_Vieira_ , it read, _you are trying to take what is mine. Stay away from Luka Modrić. I will know if you ignore my warning._

“Fuck” Marcelo swore, wrestling his phone out of his pocket.

“What are you doing?” Luka stared at him, and Marcelo could barely stand his despondent eyes, still framed by those ridiculous curls.

“I´m going to call the police. You´ve been in contact them. Who´s the guy in charge? Do you have a number?”

“I do, but I don’t see how making another call is going to help.” The midfielder began shaking his head. “ _Bože_. This is exactly what I was trying to avoid. Now you are caught up in this mess as well.”

“Well… I can´t say you didn´t warn me. Just what I needed, a little excitement in my life” Marcelo tried to joke, although his attempt to lighten the mood fell on deaf ears as Luka wracked his head to come up with a solution.

“We´ve been so careful. How does he even know? It must mean he´s been following us around. Marcelo, we can´t keep doing this. If he sees you around me again, who knows how he´ll react.”

“Hang on, you can´t mean-…”

“I´m sorry, but I´m not putting you at risk. Unless this guy is by some miracle caught, I-… I don´t see how we-…”

“Oh. No. You are _not_ breaking up with me over a coward who doesn´t even show his _fucking_ face when he issues threats.” Marcelo grabbed Luka´s shoulders, noticing with regret that for the first time in a long while, the older man shifted uncomfortably as a reaction to his close proximity. “ _Please_ , Luka”, he begged, “you don´t want to let this guy win, do you?”

Luka bit his lip but did not pull away when Marcelo´s hand came up to his neck. The Brazilian kissed him, and he felt Luka´s pulse flutter rapidly under his touch. “Then what do you suggest?” he demanded when Marcelo pulled away.

“First of all, I´m going to see if my camera recorded something. I had one installed last summer when someone threw a flare at my lawn. No clue if it still works, but if it does, maybe we´ll get some footage of the delivery person.”

“What if it was your postman?”

“No way, he doesn´t leave stuff on the stairs.” Quickly looking up a tech service number, Marcelo retreated into the living room to make the call, leaving Luka to stare at the kitchen wall, fingers dragging slowly across the surface of the table.

“Stop it” Marcelo told him when he returned, “you´ll ruin my table.”

Luka ignored him and kept up the nervous gesture until Marcelo took his fingers into his own. “It´s okay, I get it.” They retreated towards the couch, a source of vague comfort for them both. Still, Marcelo caught Luka´s eyes flickering towards the windows once in a while, and while he could not blame him for being paranoid, he wished they could put aside the unpleasant topic for a while.

“Okay, so… How about a movie? To take your mind off the whole situation?”

“If you don´t mind, I´d rather just sleep it off.”

“Yeah, me too” Marcelo admitted and let himself be tugged upwards, his heart making a little jump in his chest when Luka naturally lay down beside him despite his talk earlier. Wrapping an arm around the slim Croatian, Marcelo eventually let himself drift off with the warm presence of his friend, but neither of them got much sleep that night.

 

 

“Rough night?”

Sergio joined Marcelo while they were waiting around for the filming session of the following morning. Judging by the cautious tone of his voice, the Spaniard was wary about the answer he was likely expecting, and while Marcelo was briefly tempted to construct a wild story about his love life that would have his friend running in an instant, he chose to have pity on him.

“You could say that.” He ran a hand across his face and continued quietly. “Luka´s stalker paid us a visit yesterday.”

“Wha-… What the fuck, man?” Sergio dragged him aside. “What do you mean, paid you a visit? Do you know who´s behind this?”

“No, I meant he left something at my doorstep” Marcelo corrected him, but the clarification did not serve to calm Sergio much.

“Damn. At yours? So is he going after you now, or…”

“Nope, still Luka. He found out about our relationship somehow.” Marcelo shrugged. “He doesn´t like it.”

“ _Dios_.” Sergio´s head swivelled around to search for a glimpse of Luka. He found the Croat talking to Gareth in another corner of the room. They both looked subdued, and Marcelo had an inkling about the topic of their conversation.

“What are you going to do?”

“I don´t know.” Marcelo smiled weakly when Toni patted his shoulder as he went past him, resuming his answer when the German was out of earshot. “It´s not like there´s a manual for these things. Is there?”

“No clue. Okay, uh. Telling you to lay low obviously won´t work. That´s kinda all you´ve been doing so far, right?”

“You could say that.”

“How did he figure out you two are together?”

“Duh. Stalker. Who knows what he´s seen?” It was an awful probability, and one that made Marcelo feel sicker the more he mulled it over.

Sergio grimaced. “You´ve gotta be careful, man. Okay, here´s food for thought. Personal security?”

“I suggested that to Luka, but he didn´t want any. Though that was before we got together, so maybe he´s going to change his mind now.” Marcelo dreaded the concept of some _other_ stranger hovering at their side but would probably be safer for the both of them and give them some sort of respite as well.

“So that´s one thing-…”

“Hey, guys. What´s up with the gloomy faces? Marcelo, I gotta say, you look terrible.” Karim slung an arm around his shoulders, obnoxiously chipper for the early hour. Marcelo had half a mind to ask him where the usually serious Frenchman´s boasted mood had come from.

“Thanks. Prick.”

“Hey, gotta be honest.”

“Don´t bother.”

Karim narrowed his eyes. “Something´s bugging you. Tell me.”

Marcelo raised an eyebrow, taken aback at the striker´s interest. The team consisted mostly of good friendships, and Karim was no exception, cultivating close ties with many of his team mates, but he did not make it a habit to pry his way into other people´s lives more than necessary.

“It´s nothing-…”

“Oh, it´s something alright” Karim insisted, glancing between them impatiently. “I demand you tell me.”

“How would you know?” asked Marcelo suspiciously, and Karim scratched his head.

“Okay, I overheard something just now. I thought I´d make sure it was nothing serious.”

“What did you hear?” Marcelo urged him, cursing himself for his lack of subtlety once more.

“You were talking about a… stalker? And don´t tell me I misheard, because I´ve got great ears. The best.” Karim grinned at him, but his eyes were alert.

“… Why did I never realise how nosy you guys are? All of you, seriously.” In truth, there was some comfort in knowing that his teammates chose not to ignore the signs of trouble he had undoubtedly been emitting. He wondered if someone had approached Luka in his absence, although the Croat knew how to put up a façade, and since he looked alarmed most of the time anyway, it was always hard to tell with him. “I´m beginning to think I should just make an announcement in front of the team and get it over with.”

“Actually” Sergio said thoughtfully, “maybe it would help if everyone knew about the… situation. More eyes, you know? And maybe someone´s got a better idea about how to deal with this mess.”

“The mess?” Karim prompted, and Marcelo glumly brought him up to date.

“Aw, _hell_ ” the Frenchman drew himself up in surprise, “that’s some sick shit going on in your life, dude.”

“You don´t say. Any helpful advice?”

“… Police?”

“Been there, tried that.”

“Then no, not really.”

“That´s what I thought. Excuse me.” Marcelo cleaved his way through the assembled group of his team mates and nudged Luka once he had reached him. His friend looked up, and since only Gareth was standing nearby, Marcelo deemed it safe to discuss Sergio´s latest suggestion.

“Luka, remember our conversation about telling the team from a while back?”

“Sure” Luka affirmed in surprise. “Actually, that´s just what-…”

“I´m going to tell them right now.” Luka opened his mouth, presumably to tell him to reconsider, but Marcelo knew it was time. He had been thinking about it anyway and felt ready to take on the repercussions.

“Guys” he called out, and a few heads swivelled in his direction. “Guys, listen for a sec, okay? I gotta say something.” He wrapped his arm around Luka´s shoulders, oblivious of the way his friend tried to shush him. “No, Luka, I have to.”

“That´s really not what…”

But Marcelo blundered on. “I know some of you have been wondering what I´ve been up to during the past month. The truth is, I´ve been happier, and it´s all thanks to this guy.” He shook Luka once, and the Croat put his face into his palms. Marcelo faltered briefly when some of his colleagues started to grin. Still, he was determined to get his message across.

“So, I want you all to know that we are in a relationship. Feel free to congratulate us.”

Someone had started to clap slowly, but the majority of his peers turned away from him, and for a terrible moment Marcelo feared they were casting judgement. His panic was interrupted by Gareth clearing his throat.

“Dude… They already know?”

“ _What_?”

Luka took it up to inform him. “Apparently, Sergio took matters into his own hands yesterday after we went home.”

“… That _asshole_.” Unable to decide whether he was relieved or angry at the Spaniard´s arbitrary act, Marcelo craned his head to search for Sergio and throw him a bitter look, recoiling when he found the man standing right behind him with his hands raised apologetically.

“I was going to mention it before you ran off and started yelling.”

“They _all_ know?” Marcelo had indeed felt a few eyes upon him when they came through the door together, having attributed this to their comparatively late arrival. Their lack of energy had made itself known in the morning.

“Yes. And before you chew me out, I didn´t want to do it, but some others approached me after you were gone. They heard parts of our conversation and were curious. Understandably. And then one thing led to another and I just… kind of… got it over with.”

“… I´m never talking about private stuff in public again.” It was incredible how many unwanted ears were snatching up information when your attention lapsed even for an instant. “How did everyone take it?”

“How do you think? We´ve started a petition to get you transferred first thing in the morning.”

Marcelo bared his teeth at him. “You are not funny. That´s the unfunniest thing I´ve heard in a while.”

“Seriously, they´re cool with it. I think you´ll have to answer some question later but nobody´s going to make a big deal out of this. I think most of us saw it coming anyway.”

“How-…?”

“I mean, I´ll admit I thought that you were simply having a crush on Luka. Sorry, dude, but your acting is _way_ better on-camera” Sergio joked hopefully, and Marcelo eventually sighed and nodded to indicate that the Spaniard was forgiven for the transgression.

“Fooled you for a few years though, didn´t I?” Marcelo added smugly after a few moments.

“Years?” Marcelo had almost forgotten that Luka was standing right next to him and therefore heard every word of their talk.

“Uh. Yes?”

“That´s how long you´ve had-…”

“Yeah, alright. Don´t make fun of me.” But Luka did not laugh, looking at Marcelo warmly and, after a surreptitious glance around, pressed a quick little kiss to his jaw.

“You are a sweet man” he informed the Brazilian who had twitched in surprise, snapping out of his daze when Sergio sneezed.

“Shit, I must be allergic to sappiness. It´s disgusting, really” Sergio complained with a twinkling eye, and Marcelo aimed a kick at him.

“Kindly fuck off then.”

“Everyone, can I have some attention, please?” It felt surreal to be drawn back to what they were actually supposed to do as the director raised his voice to carry over to them. It was, however, a welcome distraction from the catapult turns of Marcelo´s current day, and he threw himself into the job they all had to carry out.

He had not precisely dreaded the aftermath of his revelation, but he still felt his stomach turning when the next break was announced. Fortunately, most of his colleagues contented themselves with some pats on his shoulders and various versions of congratulations.

“I knew it, I knew it!” Nacho enthused when Cristiano had finished his regal declaration of approval and stalked away to berate the director about something. “I should have taken Dani´s bet.”

Marcelo was less than eager to hear about the bet, but he perked up when Nacho asked cheekily: “So, between the two of you, who´s the woman?”

“Dude. Look at this guy” Marcelo gestured towards Luka who was standing a few paces away and draining a cup of coffee with relish, looking notably delicate next to Casemiro who was snacking on a bread roll. The impression was aided by their costumes, and Marcelo snorted involuntarily. “Do you even have to ask? If he´s not wife material, no one is.” He lowered his voice when Luka looked over suspiciously. “Don´t tell him I said that. Please.”

Nacho very much looked like he wanted to run over right then just to cause mischief, only to deflate when Marcelo cracked his knuckles at him. His assertion of dominance was interrupted by Mateo who asked to talk to him in private, upon which Marcelo told him that there was no privacy to be had in the company of this team, but they could try anyway.

“I wanted to say I am happy for you” Mateo said somewhat guiltily, working through the Spanish words with care, and Marcelo was forcibly reminded that he was still learning the language, although he was more proficient than most of his foreign colleagues. His efforts were commendable, and his accent, in contrast to Luka´s, was barely noticeable. “and I wish you all the best. Congratulations?”

Marcelo nodded encouragingly, upon which Mateo gathered enough courage to continue. “You will… watch out for him? It won´t be easy.”

“I´ll-… do my best.”

The midfielder wrung his hands nervously. “You are a good man, I think. Very happy. Luka, I can see that he loves you.” Blinking, Marcelo fought down the exhilaration bubbling up his throat. They had carefully avoided to put a tag at their feelings for one another, and it really had not been long enough to change that now, but as far as Marcelo was concerned, it could not get much deeper. Hearing Mateo speak so plainly was concerning and reassuring all at once. However, the young man was not done.

“But be careful-… careful? With him.”

“What do you mean?” The Brazilian tried to understand what Mateo wanted of him.

“We are… Croatian. We are war people. It´s not so easy for us to trust. Please… be good to him.” Mateo´s eyes looked far older than his physical age suddenly, and Marcelo put up his hands quickly.

“Of course. I would not risk his faith in me for anything. And thank you for your acceptance. I know how important this is-… you… are to Luka.”

He waited patiently as Mateo mentally translated his statement and smiled in shy delight, giving him a nod and then joining Lucas who was practising his lines with a growing look of desperation.

He shook his head when Luka waved him over. “This has got to be the strangest day of my life.”

Luka hummed, tugging him closer. “Mmmh, but I like not having to be careful around you all the time.”

“What about the camera crew?” Marcelo murmured, pointing towards the people who were busying themselves with the technical equipment.

“Sergio told the director we were taking our practise sessions very seriously, and they´ve kinda… sucked it all up.”

“Well then” Marcelo growled, slinging his arms around Luka´s waist and lifting him into the air in a burst of confidence, laughing at the way the Croat´s arms flailed in astonishment. “Let´s make it a show.”

“Oh, no” Isco groaned, and they looked towards him simultaneously, Luka momentarily forgetting to resist the humiliating position he suddenly found himself in. “Is that gonna be, like, a regular thing for you guys?”

“Don´t be a prude” Marcelo ordered the bearded Spaniard, “or are you just jealous?”

“I might be” Isco winked at him, “I´m not sure my relationship lives up to your apparent standards.”

“Just you watch and learn” Marcelo smiled, locking his hands more firmly when Luka began to squirm indignantly, hissing at the Brazilian to put him down, “I will teach you the way.”


	5. Counterattack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now this is where the story got away from me. I´m still not certain about how it will end, but I might have some ideas...  
> As always, I´m grateful for everyone who is still reading this and especially for those of you who leave a few words of their own.

They were fighting on the evening that matters were taken out of their hands, about a minor thing, really, Marcelo shouting at the top of his lungs and Luka´s voice pitching high and strident with tension. Both were determined not to lose out on this one, although they couldn´t remember the reason later. It evolved from a complaint about the lack of substitute batteries to another set of problems entirely, and by the time they agreed on a truce, too exhausted to keep the fire going, it had gotten very late.

“I wonder if anyone heard us” Marcelo ventured after a few tense minutes as a peace offering, though not quite a request for absolution.

“I wouldn´t be surprised” said Luka and gave him a tired breeze of a smile before raking a weary hand through his dishevelled hair. “Let´s put this behind us, yes?”

Marcelo hesitated for a second before opening his arms, inviting him for a hug. Luka stepped willingly into the embrace, cupping Marcelo´s face and giving him an apologetic kiss. “I´m sorry for blowing this out of proportion. You didn´t deserve that.”

“No, I shouldn´t have reacted the way I did. It´s kinda my fault, too.” Marcelo traced a faint line around the corner of Luka´s mouth, marvelling at the way his nose wrinkled when the Croat´s smile got wider. “Make-up sex?”

Luka poked his side with pointy fingers and narrowly dodged his friend´s head as he curled up defensively. “No.”

“Aw, come _on_ ” Marcelo whimpered, “what´s a guy supposed to do around here to get some?” That was one of the few things he would change about Luka if he could; the guy´s sex drive was substantially lower than his own. Not that he didn´t occasionally feel the need to initiate something, but he was usually content with a few stolen kisses, always leaving Marcelo with arousal pooling in his body and wanting more, needing more. The defender had long since formed the solid opinion that Luka was an unrepentant tease by nature.

He tightened his arms around Luka, desperate to draw out the moment into something even more tangible, which was why he instantly picked up on the strong notion that something was wrong when Luka´s breath hitched.

“What?” Marcelo winced when Luka clawed his fingers into his shoulder and pushed him away, aghast at the terror on his face, but the reason for the sudden change of mood became clear to him when he was forcibly turned around. Marcelo yelped sharply when he noticed the silhouette hidden in the half-shadows of his living room, now moving towards them slowly.

“What the actual _fuck_?”

There was a man, a stranger in his house, and he hadn’t noticed a thing until he was nearly atop them. _Forgive me, Luka_ , he thought incoherently, _I should have known_. And then he did not think anymore because the man began to speak.

“Move away from him.”

“Who the hell are you? Get the _fuck_ out of my house!” Marcelo took a shaky step into the stranger´s direction before being yanked backwards by the same hand that had shoved him away only moments ago. Luka made a terrified noise in his back, and the Brazilian felt fury intermingle with overwhelming fear.

“I _said_ , move away. I won´t ask again.” The man´s voice had a strangely tangy undertone, as if he had spent a few hours waxing words and then tried to soothe his raw throat with cactus butter. His face was largely covered by a dark cap and shaded glasses, and the light was too dim for Marcelo to identify any distinguished features of the lower half of his face. The only thing about him thrown into sharp relief was the weapon in his face, loosely pointed in their direction.

Marcelo reflexively moved back, almost bumping into Luka who slid around him and – his heart nearly skipped a beat – put his body in front of Marcelo´s.

“I don´t know what you want” Luka snarled with vigour, and Marcelo was impressed by how ferocious he sounded despite the circumstances, “but I won´t allow you to hurt this man.”

“I won´t, if you do what I tell you to” said the silhouette, beckoning with his gun. “Come here.”

“No way” Marcelo spat, trying to bring himself forward to shield his friend despite the alarming twitch of the weapon. “You are _not_ going near that guy.”

“Shut up” Luka hissed, eerily reminiscent of their earlier argument, although the context was glaringly different now, “and stay out of this.” He shoved him away, eyes terribly soft despite the violent gesture, before approaching the stranger stiffly. He stopped when the man stretched out his hand, and although Marcelo could only see the back of his head, he must have shown some of the fear he himself was feeling because the intruder was, in fact, trying to soothe him.

“Hey, it´s okay, it´s okay. I have to-… I´m sorry for all this. I´ll make it up to you, I promise.”

“Luka” Marcelo wheezed faintly, but he was unsure about whether the Croatian could actually hear him over the other´s words. Willing his limbs to carry him forward, he managed a few steps before the man noticed him over Luka´s tensed shoulder, pointing the barrel right at him.

“Stop right there.”

“Marcelo, do what he says” Luka commanded without taking his eyes off the man in front of him.

“That´s better” the guy said when Marcelo froze on the spot. “Now” he was back to addressing Luka, “come with me.”

“I don´t want to” Luka told him shakily, and Marcelo belatedly realised that he should do more than just stand around, slipping a numb hand into his pocket to reach for his phone, to get a hold of anything useful.

“That´s”, the intruder gritted his teeth in frustration, “that´s not an option. You have to come with me right now. Fuck, I don´t have time for this.” He leaped forward to catch Luka by the arm. The Croat gasped loudly, stumbling backwards, and he would have fallen over if not for the iron grip around his forearm.

“Come on, let´s go-… _Don´t you fucking move. I told you_ -…” The man flung his gun back towards Marcelo who had abandoned his surreptitious pocket fishing in favour of springing into action to help his friend.

“ _Don´t_ -…” Luka cried out, throwing his head around to try and keep Marcelo from advancing further by staring him into submission. “ _Dosta_ -… _Stop_ , you fucking moron.” For a moment, the Brazilian´s brain tried to work out whether he himself was meant or the other guy.

“Why won´t you just-…” The man shook Luka in his frustration, sending his hair flying in all direction, and Marcelo bit his tongue, concentrating on the faint taste of blood to keep himself from doing something he would likely regret.

“ _Please_ ” Luka begged when the man had calmed down somewhat, “you don´t need to do this.”

Prompted by a strange turn of motion from his friend, Marcelo´s eyes were dragged downwards to the hand Luka was keeping carefully concealed behind his back. It was wrapped around a gleaming shape, and he recognised the same pair of scissors he had used before to open the ominous package hidden behind Luka´s tightly clenched fingers. There was no time to contemplate how he had gotten a hold of it because the stranger moved to take a quick look behind him, and Luka swung his arm around in a blur to punch him squarely in the jaw, screaming at Marcelo to duck in the same instance.

The guy tripped backwards, arms flailing wildly to regain balance, and the Croatian struck him again, throwing his whole body into the blow, this time sending him flying. The man was taller and much heavier than both of them, but as he went down, Luka panting over his unconscious shape and letting the superfluous pair of scissors drip from his fingers, he no longer looked as threatening. Luka bent down to fling the weapon that had thankfully failed to go off from the other´s grip, and Marcelo could suddenly breathe again.

“What in the holy hell” he squeaked, raising himself up from the ground onto his knees, “was that?”

“Don´t waste time, get some tape, or some rope, anything. And then one of us is going to call the police” Luka ordered him steadily, his voice suddenly much more composed than before.

“Luka.” Marcelo stared at him in shock. “That… wasn´t an act back then, was it?”

“Partly” the Croat admitted, wiping at his wet eyes with a frown, “but that was also really fucking terrifying.”

Hauling himself back up, Marcelo hurried into his garage to grab some tape, reluctant to leave his friend alone with the senseless lunatic any longer than necessary. He must have climbed over the fence separating his garden from the street, he deduced from the state of the door leading to the backyard, almost making his way across to inspect the damage before deciding against it. The police could do that, but he would have to remember getting a better security system installed.

They taped the man´s limbs together with urgency before Marcelo pulled out the phone he had been trying to get to earlier and dialled the emergency number. Luka sat next to him, eyes still roaming over the unconscious figure. He reached out while Marcelo was reporting on their situation, taking off the man´s glasses tentatively and peeling off the dark cap as well.

He looked strikingly plain, nothing about him drawing attention from a passing eye. He seemed to be a little younger than both of them, but his apparent youth failed to douse the rage that Marcelo had built up over him.

“They´re sending someone over” he informed Luka after hanging up, “they should be here in just a few minutes.”

“Yeah”, Luka breathed, slumped forward in a parody of defeat and burying his face in his hands.

“Hey, hey” Marcelo hurried to sling an arm around him to support the midfielder, “it´s over, you fucking did it.” Pushing aside his own agitation, he mumbled a stream of encouragement at Luka who took the words in motionlessly, and Marcelo was afraid of him looking up, because if he saw so much as a single tear he would get those scissors and carve out the guy´s fucking eyeballs.

“Sorry” Luka sniffed, returning the hug eventually and inspecting Marcelo with a critical eye, “you must be feeling awful. How´s your knee?”

Marcelo, who had indeed bumped his knee into the coffee table while flinging himself towards the ground earlier, shook his head incredulously. “It´s fine. Never been better, dumb-ass.” The insult coaxed the faintest of smiles from Luka, and Marcelo vowed to himself to keep it alive. “You know, I told Gareth I´d make you beat him up a while back, but I never imagined…” He chuckled nervously.

“I suppose Bosnia taught me some things besides football” Luka ventured with a shrug, rubbing over his bruised knuckles tenderly.

“Right.” Marcelo knew the eastern European brand of football had an edge to it that he himself would not be comfortable with, but he had always assumed physical alterations were carried out on the pitch and on the pitch only. “Is it, like, normal over there to fight like that? Or are you just unlucky?”

“I punched someone on my first day there” Luka told him, “but I didn´t need to do it twice.” He seemed unwilling to offer more details, and Marcelo stowed the tidbit in the back of his mind.

“I never…”

“Punched people? No.” Luka nodded. “You are nice.”

“Well, you are nice, too” Marcelo replied, pinching his friend´s cheek fondly. “And you throw a mean punch as well, that´s even better.”

“So… you´re not angry.”

“What, about you saving my ass? Why the hell would I?”

Luka hesitated, then pressed his lips together stubbornly, staring down at his hands, and Marcelo sat back, wondering what it all meant. But the Croat was saved from a further interrogation by the screaming doorbell. Squeezing Luka´s shoulder once more for good measure, Marcelo went to open the door and recoiled when a flash of light burnt his retinas.

“Ah-… _Caralho_!”

If there was something Marcelo had always admired (albeit reluctantly), it was the incredible gift of at least one inquisitive journalist to snoop out the latest story. He was barely able to let the two police officers into his home before the press team gathered behind them could squeeze their way through as well, shouting and thrusting forward their microphones with relentless fervour, and he was willing to bet that they would not budge from the spot until light had been shed on the treacherous police presence on his grounds. It was unfortunate he lived in the part of Madrid that housed more famous people than any other, causing more than a few newspaper agencies to employ someone on a habitual lookout.

“Sorry about that” he offered the frazzled-looking policemen who seemed glad to be get away from the noisy group. “I´ve been calling about this man-… Do you know the details?”

“We got some information from the emergency department, but we´ll need another statement, if you don´t mind” the older man replied while his younger partner pointed towards the next door which lead to the kitchen. “This way?”

“Uh, y-… No, he´s actually over there. Sorry, I´m all mixed up right now.” Marcelo lead them into the living room where Luka sat, still staring at the unconscious stranger like he expected him to disappear once he took his eyes off the man. One of the officers knelt down to check the intruder´s restraints, huffing at the bruise that was already forming on his jaw.

“You took him down by yourself?” he asked, directing the question at Marcelo and furrowing his brows when Marcelo shook his head, pointing at Luka instead.

“Well, I´ll need to ask you some questions” said the man in uniform, pulling out a slim apparatus attached to a long black cord. “Are you alright with me recording this?”

Luka shrugged, eyeing the device warily, but Marcelo intervened. “Is that really necessary? We´re kinda on edge here. Can´t it wait?”

The officer looked towards his partner who nodded slowly. “Alright. You´ll need to come to the station over the next few days. We´ll call you to set a date.” The two men began to haul the intruder off the ground. The man groaned as he was dragged through Marcelo´s apartment, slowly coming to his senses. He seemed to be too dizzy to offer much resistance even as he was pulled into the clear breeze of a warm Spanish night, the press parting before him like a swarm of fish in the face of a predator.

The policemen were able to get the man inside their car without too much difficulties, although there were several arms trying to block their path and get some information out of them. One of them even had the courage to make his way back and, after exchanging contact information, held out a blank white card as well as a pen hesitantly. “For the kid?” he asked sheepishly, and Marcelo indulged him, scribbling his signature on the piece of carton, blinking as a shadow fell on the white surface. Luka was looking around his shoulder, trying to get a glimpse at the reason for the hold-up and flinching when he was caught up in the camera storm as well. So much for keeping him out of the spotlight, Marcelo thought with a wince, already picturing the following day´s headlines.

 

 

Seldom had Marcelo woken up to so many missed calls. He had spent another restless night with Luka, both too agitated to sleep and too nervous to let go of one another, taking in every last bit of comfort they could give each other. In their distress, they had forgotten to inform anyone else of what had transpired, and they were now left to pick up the pieces that others had gained through the filtered lenses of the press.

He sent a quick message to Cris, and after a few moments of consideration to Sergio as well, remembering that while his Portuguese friend was blissfully unaware of the stalker´s existence, their captain would be able to deal with the team until they were themselves able to explain the situation. It would be necessary to set their heads straight, he realised as he scrolled through his messages, some of his colleagues´ theories causing his eyebrows to nearly disappear into his hairline.

“Look at this” Luka held his phone out to him, and Marcelo rejoiced at the glint of amusement that he had not yet expected to see from the Croatian. “Remember that trashy paper that Gareth occasionally reads? You know, more pictures than text? They wrote about how you were arrested in your own home, and now he´s freaking out about it.”

Marcelo grinned. “His fault for trusting the media. He should know better.”

“And Mateo tried to call me twenty-seven times.” Luka stared at his phone, a fond look sliding across his face. “That boy.”

“I bet he´s having a heart attack over this” Marcelo wagered. “Did I tell you about yesterday? He was all, _congratulations to the happy couple, but if you hurt him I´ll bite your head off_.”

“That doesn´t sound like Mateo” Luka decided, narrowing his eyes at Marcelo who relented.

“Maybe he didn´t say it in so many words, but it was kinda implied.”

He watched as Luka dialled a number and twitched when someone´s tinny voice immediately blasted from the speaker. Marcelo recognised the person as Mateo shouting in worried Croatian, and Luka replied calmly, presumably playing down the whole situation. The Brazilian left his friends to their conversation, trying to rejuvenate by way of caffeine. Luka joined him at the kitchen table surprisingly quickly, apparently having promised a more detailed explanation to the distraught young player in person.

Having a vague idea of what they were about to face that day, Marcelo purposefully put off leaving his home until the last possible minute, discovering to his amazement that some reporters were already waiting in front of his gate with hopeful eyes. He kept some distance from Luka as they stumbled to their car, knowing that any attempt to conceal the midfielder´s presence would be futile but wanting to minimise the damage until they had decided on their next steps.

As he had expected, their colleagues swarmed them when they arrived for the next day of shooting that ridiculous advert, curious and hungry for news. There was a minute of interrogative chaos until Sergio snapped at them to get a grip and led them all into an empty room. “Now”, he said over the insistent whispering, “start talking.”

“I don´t know how much you´ve figured out-…”

“We´ve had the entirety of the press to work with.” Sergio rolled his eyes. “Trust me, one hypothesis features you bringing home a guy for a threesome gone wrong, and it only gets worse from there. Oh, how about-…?”

“ _Fact is_ -…” Marcelo interjected, “fact is the police was at my house last night.”

“Okay, but why?”

“Because”, and the thought sent another shiver down Marcelo´s spine, “someone broke into my home with a gun and tried to take Luka away.”

Luka´s hand on his arm tightened when all heads swivelled in his direction, the whispers back at full force. Squeezing his fingers, the Brazilian continued.

“Obviously he didn´t succeed, and when the police came to pick him up, they attracted a lot of attention. That´s why the media kinda exploded this morning.”

“And here I thought one of you had been arrested.” Cris looked at them sternly. “That would´ve been something.”

“But you two are okay, right?” asked Gareth, giving them a once-over and stepping back when Marcelo nodded at him. “How´d you get away from the guy?”

“That´s the best part” Marcelo told him, grabbing Luka´s right wrist and proffering his hand to the group. “Lukita here punched the living daylights out of him!”

“What, seriously?” Dani asked incredulously, looking towards Luka for confirmation who was busy trying to pry his hand back from Marcelo.

“Yeah” the left-back corroborated his claim, “you see this hand? The guy´s still got an imprint of these knuckles on his jaw! It was like-… we were at home, just… doing what we do when-…” His colleagues hung on his every word, some wearing sceptical frowns while others looked on in awe at the tale that gained life through Marcelo´s increasingly liberate descriptions. “And he was like, _oh no, don´t hurt him, don´t hurt me_ and then _WHAM_! And the man – who´s, like, a head taller than both of us, and heavier too! Anyway, guy´s out like a light, and Luka tells me to get tape, all calm and shit while I´m still like _whaaat_? Saved my fucking ass, he did.”

“Really.” Sergio was deeply impressed, and Mateo´s eyes had that star-struck sparkle again that Marcelo admitted was probably his fault this time.

“It wasn´t quite like-…” Luka began to protest before Gareth cut him off.

“Did you punch the guy?”

“Yes, but-…”

“Awesome, man.” The Welshman pounded his friend on the back, and others followed suit quickly while Marcelo just pointed dramatically at the Croatian who was sporting a hilarious expression, flashing between _that´s-nice-thanks_ and _kill-me-now_ in rapid succession.

“But what I don´t get is-…” Mateo spoke up when the celebratory moment had passed, “you said he wanted to take Luka. What about you? Why didn´t he try to take you, too?”

“Luka´s been stalked over the past few weeks” Sergio spoke up. “That must´ve been the guy, right?”

“We think so” Luka said, folding his arms tightly against his chest, and Marcelo nodded as well.

“Yeah, I mean, who else could it have been? But they´ve got the guy in custody now. I think we´ll have to give them another statement about the whole thing, but that should be it.”

Cristiano exhaled slowly at his side before perking up. “Any more questions before we start being productive?” He lowered his voice, murmuring just for Marcelo to hear: “We´ll talk later.”

The group fell silent, and Marcelo left them to work through the latest information on their own when the director appeared at the door, calling him over and asking the others to start preparations for the shooting.

“Mr Vieira, I hate to ask, but is everything alright? I read the papers today, and…” He trailed off, and the unspoken question of _Will the situation affect your performance_ hung in the air.

“It´s fine” Marcelo assured the man whom he knew to be taking the project very seriously. “Let´s get to work, right?”


	6. Cornered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone else is out to make Luka and Marcelo´s lives more difficult, and the two have a (brief) heart-to-heart. Expect some more drama, although probably not the kind you are thinking of.

“Can you describe the man that threatened you?”

“… But you have him in custody. You have him, no?”

“It´s for the protocol. Please answer the question.”

“Tall. A bit younger than me, I think. Dark hair.”

“Anything else?”

“He spoke Spanish… Sorry, I don´t remember much.”

“How did you stop him?”

“I punched him when he was distracted.”

“He had a gun. You took quite a risk.”

“I know. I wasn´t-… I didn´t see another way.”

“According to Mr Vieira, you have received several letters over the past weeks. Can you describe the contents?”

“There were some threats. Before that, descriptions of-… I´ve told the police about them already.”

“Every detail could help convict him.”

“So you think it´s the same man?”

“It´s likely. Please tell us about the letters.”

“… I didn´t think-… The… the first one…”

“What about it?”

“…”

 

 

Marcelo was pacing in the lobby when Luka emerged from a door, exchanging a few terse words with the man leading him outside. He waited until the Croatian had joined him, tugging him towards the entrance wordlessly, before his curiosity got the better of him.

“How was-…?”

“I don´t want to talk about it” Luka told him tightly, walking towards his car with incredible speed, and Marcelo jogged after him to keep up with his pace, lifting his hands in an attempt to calm down his friend.

“Alright, I get it. I won´t ask if you don´t want to tell me.”

Luka slowed down a fraction, allowing Marcelo to walk next to him.

“I thought it was interesting” the Brazilian babbled to distract the midfielder. “Being questioned by the police. I mean, they were very polite about it, but it´s not like I had anything to hide, so I guess it felt more like an interview to me? You know, half of them asked me to sign their badges.”

“They wanted me to talk about the letters” Luka said abruptly, and Marcelo nearly choked on his tongue. “I´ve sent them all of it, but they wanted to hear the details from me personally. And…” He refused to face Marcelo when he continued. “They want me to repeat my statement in court. When they pass his sentence.”

“You mean, in front of the jury and the press and… and when he´s there, too?” Marcelo rasped, horrified at the mere idea. “No. Absolutely not. You-… They can´t force you to do that.”

“But what if-…” Luka finally turned towards Marcelo, his control visibly cracking at the thought of a repeat performance of earlier. “What if it´s necessary to convict the man?”

“That´s ridiculous” Marcelo shook his head. “They´ve got enough to get the guy behind bars for a decade.”

“You think so?”

“Come here. Luka, come on.” Marcelo held out his arm and pulled Luka towards him, enveloping his high-strung colleague in a firm embrace. “I really do.”

“E-excuse me.”

Marcelo´s eyes snapped towards the man walking towards them, reluctantly loosening his hold on the Croat.

“I´m sorry, do you have a minute?”

“… Sure” Marcelo said, although he could feel his patience drain quickly at the man´s apparent indecision, his attention divided between the stranger and his friend. “What is it?”

“I was just at the station, a-and they told me you were just leaving, so I wanted to catch you before you were gone-…”

“Why?”

“They said Carlos broke into your home with a gun-…”

“Carlos?” Marcelo interrupted him, suddenly very alert. “You know the guy?”

“Yes. Carlos, he is my brother.”

“Your-… brother?” The man seemed to shrink into himself when both football players stared at him. After a few tense moments, Marcelo beckoned him to join them.

“Let´s talk.”

They walked a few streets towards a livelier part of town, choosing a small café in a secluded corner as a suitable place to continue their conversation. Their waiter stumbled over his introduction of their beverages, glancing between Marcelo and Luka like he couldn´t believe his eyes, but he disappeared quickly when the two players made their choices absent-mindedly. The stranger tried to decline their invitation at first, but when Marcelo kept insisting he ordered a coffee as well.

“Now” Marcelo began when the waiter had left, “you said something about your brother.”

The man nodded, belatedly offering them his hand. Marcelo shook it firmly, Luka following suit after a split-second of hesitation.

“Emiliano Alameda” he introduced himself with a nervous blip of a smile, “I live here in Madrid with my younger brother Carlos.”

Marcelo searched for similarities between him and the gun-wielding stranger in his house, but he was unable to reconcile the latter´s vaguely threatening image with the unassuming man fiddling with a napkin in front of him.

“The police called me yesterday, telling me that Carlos was arrested. They said I could visit him today, but when I went to see him, he refused to say anything to me. They said… They said he tried to abduct you.” He gestured towards Luka. “Please, is it true?”

“It is” Marcelo confirmed with narrowed eyes. “Why would he do something like that?”

“I-… I didn´t think-…”

“Did you know about it?”

“About what?”

“He stalked Luka for over four months.” Marcelo tried to keep his voice level, but judging by the man´s flinch he had failed miserably. Even Luka raised an eyebrow at him in surprise, eyes snapping back towards Emiliano when he nodded almost imperceptibly.

“I did, at least about some of it.”

“… Why would you admit that?” Luka asked him quietly. “Did you try to stop him?”

“I didn´t think he would go this far” the man insisted, “he was always… intense about things. I thought he would change his mind, lose interest, like he always did-…”

“Always?”

“You have to understand, Carlos is… he has a strong mind. He is stubborn, and he loves and hates to a degree that most people don´t understand. He´s been that way since he was a child. I don´t want to get into details, but trust me when I tell you that after what he´s been through, he is surprisingly stable.”

“I wouldn´t call him stable exactly” Marcelo bristled despite his reluctant fascination.

“Football is one of the things we both love although he takes it more seriously than I do.” Emiliano shrugged helplessly. “When I found one of his letters to you one day, I confronted him about it, but he said you probably got tons of messages like this, he said it was just harmless fun.”

“You believed him.”

“I think he meant it” Emiliano defended his brother with unexpected vehemence. “He wouldn´t-… he wouldn´t…” He looked at his knees in defeat. “He went to therapy before, but he stopped about a year ago. I was hoping he wouldn´t need it anymore. Apparently, I was wrong.”

“Why are you telling us all this?” Luka had been listening intently, ignoring Marcelo´s worried glances.

“I want you to understand that he´s not a criminal. Technically, yes, but he is also my brother and a good man. Troubled, but good. Please”, he nearly begged when the two players looked at each other uncertainly, “he´s made some stupid choices. But he doesn´t deserve to be locked up for the next decade. Would you… consider… If you could… Please… He is my brother.” He seemed to be holding back tears now, and Marcelo nearly moved to pat his shoulder reassuringly before remembering Luka´s terror in the face of said brother.

“He deserves everything that´s coming to him” the Brazilian stated firmly. “Even if what you say is true, I´m not going to play down the attack just to shield your brother. He needs to know what kind of pain he´s caused others.”

Emiliano swallowed. “I´m sorry. But if you would reconsider-…”

Marcelo shook his head, freezing when the man continued.

“I won´t tell anyone about your relationship.”

“What do you mean?” Luka asked sharply.

“I´ve heard my brother talking to himself a few days ago. He was very angry about it. Said that it was wrong and he needed to do something about it. I think he followed one of you and saw you two… being intimate. Now, I don´t judge, but I can imagine you don´t want this to go public.”

Marcelo had to hand it to the man, he knew how to play his cards; he certainly would not have expected this from the demure Spaniard.

“What do you propose, then?” he responded bitterly, well aware that he had little choice if he wanted to prevent the man from spilling their secret.

Emiliano leaned forward eagerly. “You could speak in my brother´s favour. Say you told the judges that he didn´t try to hurt you, that he was confused, or-… or maybe that someone else forced him to do this, I don´t know. Just… help him.”

He held his empty cup up briefly and stood up. “Thank you for the coffee. I´ll give you some time to think about it. If you reach a decision, you can contact me. The police have my number.”

Marcelo glared at his back as he left, passing several curious customers on his way.

“Unbelievable” he ranted as soon as he was gone, slamming a fist onto the table and nearly sending his cup flying, Luka catching it just in time and setting it down carefully.

“Calm down, Marcelo” he commanded, grabbing his wrist before the defender lashed out again. “Anger won´t help right now.”

“You´re right” Marcelo sighed, waving towards the waiter impatiently. “It just makes me fucking furious just thinking about this” he hissed as they watched the young man approach rapidly.

“Yes. Let´s leave the conversation for later though, hm?”

They went home, and Marcelo hauled Luka against him as soon as the door snapped shut behind them. The Croatian tensed up, and Marcelo shook his head sadly, murmuring against the midfielder´s shoulder.

“Can we just… Let´s forget about today, okay? Right now, the only thing that matters is you and me, here. Nothing else.”

Luka exhaled shakily before nodding, his hands reaching up to dig into Marcelo´s shoulder blades, and Marcelo felt him tremble, though whether from leftover fear, rage or something else entirely he could not say. He took a more informed guess when Luka suddenly shot forward, pressing up against him with enough force to propel Marcelo back against the door, devouring his mouth in a hungry kiss. The Brazilian wrapped his arms around him in turn, his breath hitching when his friend withdrew and peered at him with dark eyes that demanded the world from him.

“God, I love you” Marcelo told him, panting when Luka attacked his neck with fervour. “You gotta know-…” Adrenaline surged through his veins, and he dragged Luka with him towards his bedroom in a blind search for release, barely able to keep them going through Luka´s wild attempts to render him senseless. In that moment, nothing existed outside their little private sphere, and nothing was all he did not think about.

 

 

“Are you mad at me?” Marcelo asked much later. They were lying side by side, Luka´s hand tapping out a patient rhythm on Marcelo´s chest, neither looking at the other but each very much aware of their closeness.

“Why?” Luka scratched the question into his ear, and the hoarse sound travelled down the defender´s spine.

“What I said earlier.” Marcelo finally moved to look at his friend´s aquiline profile. Luka was staring at the ceiling, looking far too calm for the turmoil that Marcelo had been suppressing for a while now.

“Care to elaborate?”

“I meant it. But maybe it wasn´t, ah, the right moment… I´m just saying you don´t have to think I´m expecting anything in return. Just… I want you to know that.”

Luka´s nose twitched before he turned his head to search for Marcelo´s eyes with his own.

“What are you talking about?”

“I… That I love you? I said-…”

“I know what you said.” Luka frowned at him in confusion. “Wait, that´s what bothered you?”

“Yes! Why are you so chill about this?”

“Marcelo”, Luka´s fingers stopped dancing, and Marcelo keenly felt the lack of motion. “I thought it was obvious.”

“What was?” Marcelo asked, fearing the answer.

“ _Budálo_.” Luka pinched his nose tiredly. “You want me to say it? Fine. I love you. There.”

“Um… what?” Marcelo thought of a proper reaction but he was unable to decide whether to feel disappointed at the glaring lack of romance or exhilarated about the reciprocation of his spontaneous confession. He settled for relief first and foremost. “Great! Uh. You couldn´t have… put a little more spice into it?”

Luka groaned at the suggestion. “Ask me again when I´m awake.” Still, he leaned over to rub his cheek against Marcelo´s whose heart leapt at the intimate contact. “Why are you so surprised about this?”

“I´m not-…” Marcelo started to protest before Luka cut him off with a squint. “I just thought… You never said-… And it hasn´t really been all that long…”

“I never figured you for the insecure type.”

“I´m really not.” Marcelo puffed up, deflating when Luka huffed in amusement. “I´m not!”

“Okay then, Mister Confidence.” The midfielder rolled back onto his own pillow. “I´m going to catch some sleep now if you don’t mind.”

“Alright.” Rolling over, Marcelo stole another lazy kiss before flopping back in exhaustion. “Good night.”

He did not receive a reply, Luka displaying once more his amazing talent to fall asleep instantly. Marcelo snorted, draping a careful arm over the midfielder and committing the moment to memory.

“Devious” he mumbled before succumbing to sleep himself, “absolutely devious.”


	7. Off the Mark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, we finally get some actual football, who´d have thought!   
> There is also a guest appearence by a player whom I hold in very high regard. He would have taken a bigger role in this if only I had found a way to convincingly fit him into the scenario. Please note that throughout this story I have taken some liberties regarding everyone´s actual language capacities, so Luka is rather more fluent in Spanish than I picture him in reality for the sake of dialogue, and his national colleague in this chapter is... not. Apologies.

“Man, am I glad that dumb project´s over.” Sergio stretched his arms over his head lazily, grinning towards the glittering disc illuminating the sky. He was broken out of his reverie when someone kicked a ball at his ankles. “How I´ve missed this.”

They were due for a routine match against Juventus that day, an opportunity to test their new puzzle pieces at the Bernabeu set within the framework of a minor sponsorship trophy. Now that their training sessions had started again in preparation for La Liga, the team had fallen back into the usual rhythm, mourning their departing colleagues and getting used to their new dynamics. There were some fresh new faces which Marcelo had yet to memorise. He was upset about Pepe leaving for Beşiktaş, but he knew that after all this time at Real, his friend needed the change. James was leaving as well, joining Toni´s former club in Germany. All in all, it was an experimental trade-off, youth replacing experience, and they could only hope Zidane and Perez knew what they were doing.

“Hey” he prodded Luka as the Croatian approached him, hurrying towards the pitch like he could not wait to get his hands on a ball. “What´s up? Where´s your other half?”

“Actually, I´m looking for him. If you haven´t seen him-…”

Sergio shook his head, grabbing Luka´s arm as he tried to slip around him. “Whoa, whoa, hold up. It´s like you two have become one person. I don’t remember the last time I saw one of you alone. How´ve you been?”

“Fine. We´re good.”

“´We´? I was asking about you.”

“Okay _, I_. Am fine” Luka said stubbornly.

“Really now? Because it seems to me” Sergio continued seamlessly as they walked at a more sedate pace towards the training grounds, “that you could use someone to talk. Sure, there´s Marcelo, but sometimes it´s better to go to somebody who´s not quite as… involved, you know?”

They lingered at the side of the pitch, with Sergio leaning against the railing separating them from the field. “How are things going with your stalker? Have they identified him? You haven´t really kept us updated after they arrested him.”

“Yes, they know his name, his identity. The… His older brother approached us after we gave some statements.”

“His brother?” Sergio looked over to him, prompting him to spill more details. “What did he want?”

“Nothing, he…” Luka sighed. “Actually, he wanted us to put in a good word for the man in custody. I mean, they´re family, but…”

“And you told him to stuff it, right?” Sergio demanded, shaking his head at the brother´s audacity. “Shit´s not gonna fly.”

“Marcelo told him as much, but he… he found out about our relationship.”

“… Fuck. How?”

“He overheard his brother talking about it, I think. He told us he´d tell the press about it if we refused to help him.”

Sergio kicked the nearest rail post before Luka dragged him a few paces away. “Don´t do that” he scolded the Spaniard, “you´ll tear something.”

“That´s-… You should have told me sooner” Sergio accused his friend when his anger had subsided. “Us. We could have thought of something. What did you tell the bastard?”

“We haven´t decided on anything yet” the midfielder told him. “Marcelo thinks we can´t let him blackmail us like that. Who´s going to believe him, right? But he hasn´t said much else about it since we met up with the man.”

“What about you?”

Luka shook his head. “I´m not so sure. There are some rumours already, and I´m not sure how much picking apart our private lives can take before they find something substantial.”

“So, what? You´d be willing to play the attack down? Lie, even?”

“Well, what else am I supposed to do?” Luka hissed, and Sergio drew back in bafflement, the Croat´s abrupt aggression catching him by surprise. “Marcelo won´t say it, but I know how scared he is of us getting public.”

“Dude. That doesn´t mean he wants to let the guy-… your _stalker_ … off easy.”

“Maybe.”

“But I get it. If you can´t deal with the public-…”

“The thing is…” Luka patted off his jersey in a few quick motions, sending clumps of earth crumbling to the ground. “I´ve, sort of… been under the assumption that we´d get here. Perhaps not so soon, but come on. How long could we possibly keep this under wraps?”

“So, you´d be willing to face the press if the word got out?”

“It´s not ideal, but I´d do it, yes. I´m just not sure Marcelo is at that point yet, or if he´ll ever be.”

“And how are things with Marcelo, generally speaking? Going well?”

“Why do you want to know?” He did not show it, but judging by his defensive tone, Luka was less than thrilled about the question.

“Hey, just wondering. If-… if you are… uncomfortable with anything-… y´know, having doubts-…”

“Doubts?”

“Yes. You two haven´t been openly affectionate – of course – and I guess you´ve been acting more… subdued lately. But that´s all about the stalker? And not, let´s say, and I really don’t want to insinuate anything, but if… Marcelo, like… if he´s being too forward, or…”

“Marcelo´s great-…”

“Because I love the guy to pieces, but sometimes he doesn´t get hints, and-…”

“No.” The Croat warded off the insinuation indignantly. “That´s not-… That´s got nothing to do with anything.”

“Fine. I won´t meddle. Just… if you need someone to talk…” Sergio stared ahead, feeling awkward despite his show of confidence, and Luka relaxed a fraction when he recognised his friend´s genuine show of concern.

“We´re doing fine. Marcelo… he doesn’t like to talk about what happened. And I know he doesn´t blame me for the situation, but… at times I feel like it´s my fault. I should have, I don´t know, I could have done anything, really. Instead, he was… He could have been killed.” His voice cracked dangerously, and Luka pressed his lips together quickly. Rarely had Sergio seen his friend lose his composure like that.

“Hey, hey. That´s ridiculous. You can´t seriously think that. How can you blame yourself for that man´s braindead little stunt? You know what you did? You stopped him. You saved Marcelo. Tell me that´s not what happened.”

“That´s…” Luka wrapped his hands around the railing, knuckles paling when his grip went taut. “I took a risk. If I had gone with the guy, waited a little… No. I´m sorry, it´s done. I can´t change it now.”

“Did you talk to Marcelo about all of this?”

“He doesn´t need the reminder” Luka confirmed Sergio´s suspicions. “He… We just want to put this thing behind us.”

As the pitch started to fill with colleagues and opponents alike, Sergio pushed off the separation fence. “Alright, I´ll leave it for now. But I want you to tell me if anything comes up, okay? If only for my own peace of mind.”

He jogged onto the pitch, neatly intercepting a pass from Dani to Nacho before returning the ball with a cheeky flip, and pushed his conversation with Luka aside for the moment.

 

 

The game was chaotic and fast-paced as those matches in-between seasons tended to be, both teams giving each other a run for their money. Sergio spent the first half on the bench, trying to stave off the heat as he watched his comrades grind scars into the carefully cultivated grass. He kept a close eye on Marcelo and Luka, noticing with relief that their commitment to the game seemed unchanged, both a constant in their ever-fluctuating team.

Half-time approached quickly, and as Sergio went out once more to warm up (as if he needed to fire up his over-heated cells under the glaring sun), he spotted a striped jersey jogging up to Luka, engaging him in a lively discussion. Upon closer inspection, Sergio identified the man as Mario Mandžukić, a man with whom he had clashed in the past. There was little love lost between him and the fiery striker; he privately thought of him as a two-legged landshark with serious anger issues. Perhaps, as some had insinuated, they were more alike than he could admit to himself, but it was probably for the best that they did not meet each other on the pitch more than perhaps once or twice per season, if fate and the Champion´s League lottery permitted the encounter.

Sergio was also aware of Luka´s surprisingly civilised rapport with his Croatian teammate, although he had never thought them particularly close. From the looks of it, Mandžukić was trying to impart some kind of knowledge on Luka who listened intently, nodding at some points and shaking his head at others. Sergio wondered why the exchange had caught his attention before he was prodded from his distracted spying by Marcelo.

“Hey.” The Brazilian´s eyebrow was raised precariously, sweat beading beneath the towering mess of his hair. “You done checking out my man?”

“Dude, just keeping track, okay?” Sergio defended his curiosity. “I didn´t know Luka was so chummy with Mr Attitude over there.”

Marcelo squinted to get a good look at the Juventus player before recognition settled in. “Mario? Hm. Can´t say I´ve noticed them talking much, but now that you mention it, the Croatians are all pretty close, I think. Like, closer than us Brazilians at least.”

“Urgh.” Sergio´s face contorted into a nauseated grimace. “Can you imagine being friends with that guy? He´s got zero respect for others. He can´t even take a graze on the heel! No, it´s all ´ _let´s fight_ ´ with him. He´s an asshole!”

“Sounds like somebody I know” Marcelo said, and Sergio did not even need to look at him to know to whom he was referring.

“Yeah, yeah. At least I keep it down when I´m not playing.”

“Who says he´s not the same way?” The suggestion galled the Spaniard who decided to change the topic before things got out of hand.

“So… I spoke to Luka before the match. Seriously, what´s the deal with you two and that blackmailing brother?”

In between much grumbling, Sergio managed to wrestle Marcelo´s opinion from him. He was adamant about denying the man but unable to offer an alternative, leaving Sergio to wonder if he had really thought about it at all since the unorthodox proposal was made.

However, he was unable to come up with advice before they were joined by the two Croats, and while Sergio returned Mario´s challenging stare, neither felt the immediate need to start something, at least until the Juventus player started to talk.

“You have control over the thing” he demanded more than inquired in cumbrous Spanish, “You will help.”

“The thing?” Sergio raised an eyebrow, upon which Mario intensified his glare.

“The man with gun.”

“Sure, buddy, I´ll help. How about you?”

Mandžukić opened his mouth, but Luka cut him off. “No.”

“I was-…”

“No. His ideas won´t help us.”

“Shocker” Sergio mumbled and then, because it was impossible not to, he asked: “What ideas?”

“Trust me. He doesn´t have a good solution.”

“Yeah, but hypothetically speaking, what solutions does he have in mind?”

Luka threw Mario a disgruntled look, but his compatriot scoffed, not intimidated in the least. “I can take care of problem. Will go away.” He snapped his fingers, and Sergio echoed the motion in disbelief.

“Did-… did he just say that? What does that even-… Does he mean what I think he means?” He pointed at the tall Croat in alarm. “Dude, you´re fucking crazy.”

“Yes” Mario confirmed smugly, scowling when Luka hissed something at him in warning.

“You will not listen to him” Luka instructed Sergio, as if the Spaniard could actually feel compelled to follow the striker´s lead. “Marcelo, we really need to talk about this.”

“Right.” Marcelo´s sour expression looked strange on his usually cheerful face. “Not now, though.”

Mario´s eyes twitched from his friend to the Brazilian. “He wants to talk. Talk.”

“Hey” Marcelo protested, “you don´t get to tell me what to do-…” He leaned back in discomfort when Mario took a menacing step towards him, only to bump into Luka´s outstretched arm. It was a comical scene, Sergio noted, Mandžukić held back by his tiny captain.

“That´s enough. Thank you, Mario, I´ll handle it” Luka told him, obviously fed up with his national teammate´s insistence. “Marcelo, we don´t have to speak about this right now. But we can´t avoid the topic forever.”

Marcelo nodded shortly, still staring at Mario like he would, perhaps, at a large dog whose owner had just reassured him about its harmlessness using a sentence that ended with _just wants to play_.

“I don´t like it” Mario announced abruptly and stalked away, Luka trailing after him with an apologetic look towards his friends.

“You were right” Marcelo commented when they were out of earshot. “ _Filho da puta_.”

“Did Luka tell him about the stalker?”

“If it was only that…” The left-back threw his hands into the air, looking for all intents and purposes like a man bereft of belief in mankind. “Apparently, Luka had no qualms about telling him, telling _them all_ about our relationship as well.”

“Wow, so they _are_ close.”

“You wouldn´t believe how many threats I´ve received. The whole team is batshit insane. My life practically depends on whether Luka keeps our arguments to himself, because, and I quote the weird-looking blonde Viking look-alike, I _better fucking keep him happy or else_. Plus, some Croatian nonsense that I didn´t understand because, what a surprise, _I don´t speak that stuff_.”

“Hey now”, Sergio made a grab for his shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly, “I´m sure they´re only messing around.”

“Really? Have you seen the way Mario stabbed me with his eyeballs just now?”

“He´s a nutcase-…”

“Dude, they _all_ are. I don´t know how Luka survives international breaks. Or Mateo.”

“Okay, but what I don´t get is-… Why haven´t you talked it out with Luka? Come on, you need to deal with it sooner or later.” Sergio slapped Marcelo´s side carelessly, still hung-up about the man´s obvious reluctance to confront the topic.

“I… hate it, alright?” Marcelo burst out, looking almost surprised at himself moments later. “What right does this guy have? His damn brother gives us the shock of our lives, and he has the galls to ask us for his protection? And now we get to choose between what´s right and what´s good for us? How the _hell_ are we supposed to do this if _every single goddamn soul out there_ knows about this? God, I should have-… I should have…” He trailed off, furiously tugging at his sleeves. “I just… really hate thinking about this because I guess it makes me feel awful and we shouldn´t even have to make that decision.”

“But you don´t think Luka shares your… whole…” Sergio gestured vaguely towards his friend. “I´m pretty sure he doesn´t appreciate your avoiding him.”

“Yeah, maybe, but I already know he´d lie in court just to keep us a secret, what´s there to talk about?”

“Well, have you asked him why?”

“What do you mean, why? He doesn´t want to deal with the inevitable shitstorm, and you know what? Neither do I!”

“Okay” the Spaniard leaned forward intently, shaking Marcelo for good measure to get his full attention, “but what if I told you that he´d be able to deal with your exposure to the public?”

“… No, he wouldn´t-…”

“He told me so himself, just before the game.”

Marcelo gaped at him, dumbstruck. “No, no, no” he finally rasped, “can´t be, that was one of his conditions when we got together. We don´t tell anyone apart from family, friends and teammates.”

“But the situation´s changed now, and he´s willing to move onto the next stage” Sergio explained patiently. “The only question is, are you?”

“Sese, I´m not-…” Realisation struck as Marcelo almost lost his balance when he stopped without warning on their way to the bench and Sergio bumped into him. “What else has he told you?”

“What?”

“Luka. Did he say anything else?”

“He, uh, I think he´s under the impression that you don´t like to talk about the stalker thing – which you pretty much confirmed just now – but also that you two are doing well apart from that.”

“Huh.”

“And…” Sergio hesitated briefly, wondering whether it was a good idea to tell the Brazilian about the last part of their conversation before deciding that his friends´ temporary failure at communication meant that he had to step in. “He said something about feeling guilty? I don´t know, something about him taking a risk or whatever. He was kinda bummed about how things turned out, minus the part where you got away alive and well, obviously.”

“ _Céus_ , he-… he´s blaming himself? _Puta merda_ ” Marcelo groaned, balling his hands to a fist and striking the transparent wall separating the players from the rest of the coaching zone. A few of his younger colleagues jumped in their seats. “And it´s all my fault.”

“You´re blaming yourself for him blaming himself?” Sergio could not prevent forming the ridiculous notion into a sentence, congratulating himself moments later for coaxing a weak smile from his agitated teammate.

“I think” Marcelo rubbed his neck sheepishly, “I need to talk to Luka.”

“Yeah, you go do that.” Sergio shoved him towards where he could still make out the unlikely pair of Luka and Mario absorbed in conversation. “Just your luck Zizou chose to swap out _both_ of you at half-time, right? Speaking of which, I really gotta go, I think that guy´s been waving at me for about a minute. See you, man. Good luck.”

“Thank you” Marcelo called after him, “you too. And score a few, would you? I´d hate to see Super Mario’s team pinching the victory after all this.”

“Will do” the Spaniard shouted back, jumping a few times to make up for the lost warm-up. Soon enough, the referee´s whistle blew all distractions straight from his mind, and Sergio lost himself to the machinery of football.


	8. One-on-one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might just be my favourite chapter so far, I can´t even put my finger on it.  
> I´d like to thank everyone who lets me rant about these characters, I appreciate it so much!

True to his word, Marcelo set off to seek out Luka, determined to plough through the murky depths of their situation. Mario´s eyes bore into him as he approached the Croatians. He ignored the malevolent glare and gestured for Luka to follow him down into the corridor that lead to the changing rooms.

“I´ve avoided this, and I´m sorry” he apologised when they had found a suitably secluded spot, the uproar from outside thudding dimly into their ears. “Please, will you talk to me now?”

“That´s quite the development” his friend noted in bemusement, “why the sudden change of mind?”

“Sese talked some sense into me.”

“Ah.”

“He´s right, I didn´t handle this very well. No, I didn´t handle it at all. But we need to do this.”

“Yes.” A few seconds passed before Luka slid down the wall, patting the empty floor beside him, and Marcelo joined him gratefully. Still, he felt the knot in his stomach tighten further at the thought of a talk he had dreaded over those long past few days.

“So” Luka cleared his throat when Marcelo kept staring at his knees, “whatever Sergio told you was enough to put you back on track. You listened to him.” Marcelo shrugged, wincing when Luka continued quietly: “He convinced you when I couldn´t.”

“Yeah” Marcelo said guiltily, “I guess.”

“What did he say to you?”

“The weirdest stuff, really. For a start, do you really blame yourself for anything that happened? Because that´s _so_ wrong. Delusional, even” Marcelo practically erupted, desperate to get his point across. “The only thing you´ve done is put an end to this crazy bullshit.”

“You call that an end? Marcelo, we both know it´s not over, and it won´t be over until that man is behind bars” Luka pointed out, dragging his thumb over the cold linoleum floor. “And that´s exactly why we are talking right now instead of, I don´t know, exchanging rude gestures with the other substitutes.”

“Then how do you propose we end it?” The question sounded too innocuous to Marcelo´s ears, its implication far outweighing eight simple words. Luka reacted accordingly, pinching the bridge of his nose in a tightly wound way that suggested he was fighting off a headache.

“The way I see it, we have two options. First off, doing what the brother wants. We´ll gloss over the details, and maybe that´ll be enough to get the court to show leniency. Assuming he keeps his word, we won´t have to worry about the repercussions, at least not immediately.” He did not elaborate, but Marcelo knew what his colleague was getting at. If the sentence was substantially reduced, there was no guarantee he would stay away from either of them once he was released. It was impossible to estimate the man´s reaction, and judging by Emiliano´s disjointed description of his brother, neither could even his closest family.

“Secondly, we´ll do nothing. I´m pretty sure the-… _Carlos_ …” Luka curled his tongue around the name experimentally, “wouldn´t be able to resurface for a long time. The downside…”

“Word gets out” Marcelo finished the thought, barely registering the nod Luka gave him. “Sese said you´d prefer this option.”

“It depends” Luka said haltingly. “I know it seems unlikely, but we could write it off as rumours. Keep a bit of distance until the novelty wears off.”

Distance was not something that Marcelo was prepared to accept. Even now, the urge to cross the arm´s length of space between them persisted, kept at bay only by the small rational portion of his brain making a note of every occasional passer-by. Even that part shut off, however, when Luka pressed on.

“It that doesn´t work and the truth does get out… That´s a different choice to make.” The Croatia´s head rolled around to meet his eyes, and although Marcelo tried to flush the notion from his system, the thought kept gnawing at his mind. He was unable to reconcile it with the image in front of him, loopy-haired Luka with his tired eyes and tapping fingers, mouth melting stubbornly into the rest of his striking features. This was the man he knew he loved, and still, _still_ the future was a mountain for which he found himself woefully underprepared.

“Let´s not get ahead of ourselves” he stumbled over the words in an attempt to avoid that particular bridge. “What if-… what if this Alameda guy doesn´t follow through? He could just be bluffing. Anyway, the chance of anyone actually believing him-…”

“Whether or not a journalist actually believes him is of little consequence” Luka observed, “if there´s a juicy story involved. And belief is generated with the printing press. Black on white equals truth, that´s the general assumption, no?”

“I get it” Marcelo silenced him impatiently, “just trying to think positive here. We haven´t lost yet.”

“Ah.”

Marcelo could hear the gears ticking behind Luka´s forehead, but he did not wait for the result, another question forming rapidly on his tongue. “What did Mandžukić suggest?”

“Never mind that.”

“What, is that another secret of yours?” Marcelo asked, unable to keep the accusatory out of his voice.

“Not mine” Luka told him wearily, “and you don´t need to know. It´s nothing, really. Mario wants to help but his ways are not always… realistic options.”

“Fine” the Brazilian grumbled, “now what?”

“You´ve made your point” Luka said bluntly, “and since we _both_ obviously don´t need any more trouble than we can handle, I think we should do what Alameda wants. We´ll get the brother out on a ruling of unsound mind or something, and he´ll spent his days of confinement in a treatment facility instead of prison, and that should be it.”

“That´s not what you wanted to do earlier.”

“You didn´t say anything earlier.”

“Well, you can´t make up your mind based on my opinion alone-…”

“I´m not-…”

“Seriously, Luka. This is important. If this goes sideways, I can´t-… be responsible.”

“For what?”

“If this…” Marcelo finally scooted over, desperate for some kind of contact, and balked at Luka´s white-knuckled grip around his knee. “Luka, look at me. I don´t want this to tear us apart, okay? I´d get if you needed some space after all of this. Hell, I´m expecting it, even. But if you make this choice only because I´m too…” He gulped, trying to keep his voice level. “I´m too weak to deal with public scrutiny… If something goes wrong, I´m the one who fucked up, and I couldn´t even blame you for not wanting to… put up with any of my shit anymore-…”

“Oh.” Now Luka was the one to slide closer, and he took Marcelo´s face in his hands in a way that could not possibly be mistaken for a platonic gesture, leaving the defender glancing around anxiously. He made no move to free himself, however, as Luka tried to calm him down. “Marcelo, I´m not making the choice only because of your… understandable reluctance. You are not forcing me to do anything, trust me. This is me deciding on what´s best for us. Besides, you are caught up in this mess because of me-… No, it´s true, and you have a say in this as well. I can´t ignore your opinion. I also happen to think that whatever we do, we´ll get it right. And I hope you know…”

He gave Marcelo a lingering kiss, whispering as he drew away. “I´m not ready to let go of you for a long time.”

“Fuck” Marcelo breathed and clashed their teeth together almost painfully, and when the older man responded equally enthusiastically, he finally felt the knot in his chest dissolve. Maybe that had been his source of malcontent all along, the fear that they would not be able to survive the ordeal intact. But for the moment, Luka had laid rest to the storm threatening his sanity. It would have to be enough.

 

 

They lost by one goal, a result they could not have cared less about since winning had not been their primary aim. “Well done” Zidane nodded when they reconvened in their cabin amidst the flurry of flung clothes and hushed conversation. A few of the new players looked up in surprise.

“But we lost”, Achraf ventured hesitantly.

“And you´ve learned from it. Every time you play, every time you fail you´ll pick yourself up, and I expect nothing less from you.” Their coach returned his stare challengingly, and the young man fought to keep his eyes level. “No one starts out at a hundred percent. You grow with experience, and if you have what it takes, you will do great things in the name of this club.” Inclining his head for emphasis, he turned towards the more seasoned group that had gathered in a different corner, and Sergio nearly choked on his sip of water when Zidane fixated him intently. “As some of you have already proven. Not always good things, but great all the same.”

Sergio gave him an awkward thumbs up, and his French coach narrowed his eyes at Marcelo who sat next to the Spaniard, struggling to pull a clean shirt over his head and freezing when he emerged to the sight of Zidane´s probing stare. “Different things, difficult things. Things that time will tell are right-… or wrong.” Marcelo had a feeling he knew to what his coach was referring, but since the man did not elaborate, he had little choice but to nod uncertainly.

“Now, I want each of you to think about your new role. You´ve had a taste of the coming year today, and if anyone keenly feels the need to address any problem, he will approach me. Tomorrow. For now, you´re dismissed.”

“Is he always like this?” Borja whispered when Zidane swept out of the room. “Or just after we lose a match?”

“Don´t worry” Lucas assured him, “that´s how he motivates people.”

“It´s true” Marcelo added, “but don´t let him know you´re intimidated. He can smell fear from a mile away.” He grinned when the youngsters exchanged apprehensive glances. “Nah, I´m kidding, he´s awesome. Still, be sure to show some respect, the man is used to be treated as a legend and, most importantly, he´s the boss.”

They nodded zealously, and Marcelo recognised the same awe they reserved for Zidane first and foremost washed down to a glimmer when they looked at him for further instructions. Still, they would be colleagues and equals as such, and Marcelo vowed to make them understand.

 

 

“Do you know if someone told Zizou about us?” Marcelo asked Luka that evening, unfolding one of his shirts and inspecting it with a critical eye. Since the match had taken place quite early in the day and they had the rest of the day off, Marcelo had decided it was time to make his place more habitable for two people instead of just one. While there was, in theory, plenty of space, he was not ashamed to admit his tendency to collect everything in sight, and most of his rooms were stuffed with things he could not even remember procuring. Now that Luka spent most of his time at his house, the Brazilian insisted he should have at least some space to store his own stuff at an easily accessible place.

His undertaking to clean out his rooms would also solve other potential issues, such as the danger that came with sloppily stacking various items on top of each other over the course of years. Marcelo had learnt to navigate around them with his eyes closed, but the last time an argument between him and Luka had escalated the Croat had stormed off in search of a place to cool off and had nearly been struck by a boxy old stereo system plunging down from a jolted shelf. The incident had ended their dispute very quickly, with Luka apologising over the broken stereo and Marcelo hyperventilating at the thought of what could have happened, and it was the safety hazard that had motivated him above else to go about overhauling his organisational system.

“I don´t” Luka said, both of his arms submerged in a large box of discarded artefacts, shifting them around to make room for more. “What about this?” He held up an item roughly the shape and colour of half a coconut and tapped out a plink-plonk melody on its aglets.

“That´s my thumb piano!” Marcelo snatched the instrument from him and stroked the polished surface fondly. “I´ve been looking for this.”

“Really? How often have you actually used that thing?” In contrast to Marcelo´s reluctance to part with the overwhelming majority of his grubby treasure hoard, Luka was an advocate of minimalism and tried to sneak things onto the trash pile while the younger man was distracted.

“That´s-… not the point” Marcelo protested, blowing air into the object´s round opening and coughing when a cloud of dust flew up, clinging to his nostrils. He swiped at his irritated nose, abandoning the instrument on another pile when he spotted a new item. “Oooh, would you look at that!”

Luka frowned at his newest discovery. “Great, there´s more.”

“You are so crabby” Marcelo laughed, shaking the rattle in his hands with a proficient casualty that bespoke his experience. “Luka, Luka, Luka Lukita.” When Luka failed to swoon over his singsong serenade, he harrumphed and set the thing aside. “You´re just unable to appreciate my talents.”

“I´m condemning your inability to get rid of your garbage” Luka corrected him, closing the lids of the box in front of him and sneezing when the ensuing draft sent another puff of dust flying, filling the air with tiny gleaming particles.

“Oh my God” Marcelo gushed, his phone flying up in a flash, “that was adorable. Do it again.” Luka shot him a scathing look, blinking in outrage when Marcelo took a snapshot. “How about a smile for a change, hmm?”

“You don´t deserve a smile” Luka grumbled, throwing a nearby towel at Marcelo who caught it casually. “How about you get to work for a change?”

“Oho, touché.” Marcelo grabbed the next piece of clothing on his pile, things that had gotten too small after doing laundry or that did not meet his tastes anymore. “Actually, this is not bad.”

Luka made a horrified sound when Marcelo held a flower-bedecked shirt in front of his chest experimentally. “Please” he said with the despairing tone of someone acknowledging a lost battle, “tell me you are not thinking about keeping that atrocity.”

“No?”

“You´re going to wear it tomorrow.”

“… Probably.” Marcelo shrugged. “You know me so well.”

“I wish I didn´t” Luka told him, but there was no bite in his voice.

“Crabby, crabby, crabby.” The defender waggled a reproachful finger at him. “As usual. That can´t be healthy for you, old man.”

“I´m not crabby” Luka insisted before relenting in defeat. “Am I?”

“Yes.” Marcelo patted his cheek on his way to the pile carefully placed just beyond Luka´s line of sight where he had surreptitiously placed several items he wanted to keep but Luka had adamantly rallied against. “You´ll die of grumpiness way before retirement, and I know you´ll take Zizou with you because he´ll have an aneurism trying to replace you.”

The joke went completely over the midfielder´s head. Instead, Luka started fiddling with the rattle Marcelo had discarded earlier, and Marcelo knew he was holding something back.

“Luka-…”

“I need to ask a favour” the Croat said bluntly and completely out of the blue, “but I want you to say no if you don´t want to do it.”

“Always-…”

“No, hear me out first.” Luka leant against the edge of a table, flipping a finger against his rattle distractedly. He was carefully avoiding Marcelo´s eyes. “I´ve been thinking, and now that we´ve actually talked about this, I really want to…” He seemed to steel himself for the next part. “I want to visit the-… Carlos. I want to talk to Carlos.”

“Carl-…” Marcelo began, his brain taking a second to place the name. “Wait, _what_? Luka, what the fuck?”

“I need to know-…”

“You want to _pay your stalker a visit_? What, have a nice little chat? Luka, you can´t possibly be thinking about this-…”

“Just-… listen for a second, okay?” Luka shouted, flinging the rattle aside. It landed in a distant corner, but neither man paid attention to the crashing sound of something fragile shattering that followed. “I have to know what he knows, what he wants, why he did what he did, everything. I want to hear it from him, and I want to know now, not in a few months when I actually get the chance to hear him out in court.”

“But… No.” Every fibre of Marcelo´s being revolted at the thought of Luka in the same room as the man who had proved his obsession with the midfielder over and over again. “I don´t know what you expect to get out of this, but believe me when I tell you: This is. A. _Bad_. Idea.”

“Perhaps, but I´m going to see him anyway. That´s what I wanted to ask you, and now you understand why I want you to think this through carefully. I… I´m not… I know it´s probably safe and all, but…”

“You want someone to come with you” Marcelo realised, grimacing when he put two and two together. “Me.”

“It doesn´t have to be you” Luka hurried to add, “if you don´t feel up for it – and I couldn´t blame you – I´m sure Sese or Gaz will help out. I just wanted to ask you first.”

“I…” Marcelo swallowed. “I need to think about it. How soon do you need an answer?”

“I´ll need some time to convince the police to actually let me see him” Luka confessed, “they weren´t too thrilled when I talked to them last week, either, but there´s no law against it, so… Take your time. Just… remember, you´re under no obligation here, okay?”

Marcelo stared the man, cursing his obstinacy but acutely aware of the tiny lump of awe worming its way into the clump of anxiety that had built up since Luka had confronted him with his asinine idea.

“And people call me the dumb one” he complained, kicking an empty piece of cardboard across the floor.

“Who´s calling you dumb?” Luka sprang up and made a show of cracking his knuckles, “I´ll destroy them.”

“I believe you” Marcelo snorted despite himself, “good to know you´ll defend my honour.”

“Any time.” Luka actually winked at him, visibly relieved that the uncomfortable part of their conversation was over, and Marcelo could have promised him anything at that moment. He clamped down on the sudden urge to tell Luka that yes, of course he would accompany him to visit the crazy guy in prison, and how about getting some sushi afterwards.

“I hate sushi” Marcelo mumbled, and Luka squinted at him but offered no further comment. “I hate it so much.”


	9. Own Goal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back to everyone who is still reading this. I admire your dedication. This story is approaching its conclusion, although I´m not exactly sure how many more chapters there will be. 
> 
> A couple of notes up front.
> 
> The match against Levante to which I´m referring in this chapter has actually taken place. It was a convenient frame for my story line, so I´ve taken the liberty of weaving my own take on it.
> 
> Schizophrenia is a thing here, and I won´t explain every detail in this story because that´s not how things work in my opinion, you don´t always get a coherent analysis on life. However, if anyone has a question how I decided to go about it, what Schizophrenia actually entails (especially in the case depicted here), you can comment with a question and I´ll try to answer it as best as I can.
> 
> Without further ado, enjoy this (admittedly a little down-trodden) chapter!

The issue rose up again just before the season was scheduled to start. They were supposed to go up against Levante to set the tone for the coming year, and while nobody was particularly worried about the outcome, Marcelo had other things on his mind. There was the matter of his contract, with the Real officials still debating on its terms, although they had made it clear that they wanted to keep him at the club. This was fine with him, especially since Luka´s contract would not expire until 2020 and the Croatian had emphasized his intention to remain in Madrid.

It was just his luck that Luka came up to him a day before their Levante match. Apparently, he had been able to put through his request after repeatedly insisting, and Marcelo tetchily wondered how much influence his profession had on the decision. Or perhaps Luka´s perpetual glumness had rubbed off on him and people were generally allowed to ask the police for visitational rights of any kind, even if that sounded improbable to the Brazilian.

Now he found himself waiting in a drab room with Luka fidgeting in a chair next to him. Neither felt the need for conversation, and they spent half an hour in silence until a man beckoned towards them, leading them through a few doors and into another room.

Marcelo glanced around, feeling jittery and expectant at once, which was why he failed to notice the man behind the glass barrier at first, watching them motionlessly. There were a few chairs placed at their disposal, and while Luka snatched one of them instantly to push it towards the silent figure, Marcelo lingered behind, working to digest the idea of what they were about to do.

Having been unable to change Luka´s mind about the visit, there really had been no choice for him but to agree to come as well. Apart from his utter terror at the idea of leaving Luka to deal with the guy on his own – no matter whom else he got to accompany him – there was also that little spark of _I-need-to-know_ , fanning the flames of his innate curiosity.

They had been instructed about the rules of the encounter by a stern security guard of the containment facility. _You´ll be under supervision at any time_ , she had informed them, _you won´t be able to interact with the man physically, and under no circumstances are you allowed to threaten him, insult him or offer him anything of material value._

Only after signalling their compliance by signing the corresponding paperwork were they finally given clearance to proceed to the waiting area, but Marcelo had already forgotten the finer details of the hassle they went through to get here, mind fizzling out at as he got a good look of the prisoner.

“Thank you for agreeing to meet us” Luka said, and Marcelo´s eyebrows went up against his own will because gratitude was just about the last thing he would have liked to express in that moment.

Carlos nodded, although he did not seem at ease in their presence, eyes flickering back and forth between them and the guard who had taken a spot close to the door.

“How are you doing?” Luka pushed when the guy remained silent, and the question had the desired effect – the man´s attention snapped towards him.

“Why are you here?” His voice sounded remarkably different from what Marcelo could recall, but considering the considerable situational difference he accepted it offhandedly. “Did Emiliano send you?”

Luka shook his head. “We haven´t talked to him in a while.”

“Then what-…” The man glanced up and then back to Luka whose hand was, in contrast to his calm demeanour, clenching the arm rest of his chair. “I can explain, alright? If you get me out of this-… I swear I didn´t mean to…” He seemed at a loss of words, tugging at his ear in frustration when he failed to produce any meaningful sentence. “You have to believe me.”

“Pal” Marcelo butted in, “how about you start making some sense?”

Carlos leaned forward intently and launched into a bizarre sequence of cause and effect, leaving the Brazilian struggling to follow his narration. He would have preferred a straight-forward lie rather than the phantasmagorical justification with which he was confronted.

He was tempted to write it all off as an attempt to shift the blame onto someone else. But Marcelo did, in fact, recall his strange behaviour, the desperation that the man had displayed. _I have to_ , drummed in his ears, and while his ire had not dwindled in the least, he should probably give Carlos the benefit of the doubt.

“So, what you´re trying to say is… It wasn´t your idea? Someone else is responsible?”

“It´s-… no, yes. Listen, I know I´m fucked up, okay? But this? This is some serious shit. I wouldn´t have-…”

“Written those letters? Sent kidnapping threats, _what_?”

Carlos balled a fist in response to Marcelo´s bitter reiteration, his other still hidden beneath the table on his side of the dividing wall. “That´s diff-… No. I´m not that kind of-… ask Emile. Ask my brother, he can tell you.”

“He said you went to therapy” Luka reminded him, “why?”

“Man, I went through some stuff, okay? Things didn´t work out so well for me, and he signed me up for some therapy crap.”

“And you quit.”

“Course I did, that shit didn´t get me anywhere.” Carlos pressed his face into his hand, leaning heavily on his elbows. He took a few heavy breaths before leaning back upright. Marcelo thought he looked the worse for wear, maybe even unhinged.

“Just… get me out of here.”

 

 

“Well, that wasn´t a waste of time at all” Marcelo noted as they walked back towards his car. “I don´t know what I expected, but this? He´s got more than just a few screws loose.”

“I agree” Luka said, “I´ll have to talk to Emiliano again.”

“ _We_ do” Marcelo reminded him. “I´m not leaving you alone with that blackmailing son of a-…”

“Hey, easy. He´s just looking out for his brother.”

“Who kept staring at you like he wanted to eat you, and in the worst way possible.” The Brazilian shuddered. “I sincerely hope you aren´t planning on popping around again.”

“No” Luka confirmed, “I don´t think we´ll get any more out of him than we already have.”

“Okay.”

Marcelo kept glancing at Luka out of the corners of his eyes, trying to glean the Croatian´s state of mind after their prison trip. The midfielder was quiet, but he seemed lost in thought rather than shell-shocked.

“Can I hug you?” he asked on impulse, and Luka huffed in surprise.

“Go ahead, I guess.”

Marcelo dropped an arm around his shoulders, but it felt like too little.

“I wish I could kiss you right now” he told his friend quietly, and he hated the way Luka turned away in a surreptitious search for spying eyes. “That´s the worst thing about this. Us. Having to be careful all the time.”

“It´s not like there´s much of a choice.”

“Isn´t there, though?”

Luka stopped, bringing his colleague to a halt as well, and gave him an assessing look. “What´s this really about, Marcelo?”

“Just saying.”

“No.” Luka stepped away the defender, and Marcelo´s arms sank in disappointment. “Don´t you see? This is exactly what we´ve been trying to discuss.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I´m talking about us. Marcelo, I need to know where you stand. I´m prepared to take this all the way, okay?”

That much Marcelo knew, especially after their exchange during the Juventus match, but while he was glad about his friend´s easy admission, he could make neither heads nor tails of his own preferences.

“I´m-… sorry, I just don´t think…”

“Yes. You don´t want this to get out.”

“Not… yet, maybe-…”

“And yet, you insinuate that things can, no, should be changed. So, what I´m asking you is, what do you _really_ want?”

Marcelo failed to come up with an answer, his mind reeling as the choice was laid down before him. It felt like another hurdle in his path, pushed up to him at the last second, a stumbling block on the path swallowed up by the fragility of his future.

“Because I need you to be with me a hundred percent when the time comes – and it will come – and I thought you… we _both_ knew what we were getting into” Luka said quietly.

“Luka-…”

“Look, I´m not trying to make you feel guilty, okay? But I think you need some time to really think about what you want out of this, and until you´ve reached a decision… we should take it easy, yes?”

“What do you mean, easy?”

“I mean… Giving each other some space.”

That stung, and the worst thing was, Marcelo knew it had been coming for a while now. “You mean, we should… go separate ways, is that it?”

Luka took a hold of his shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly. “You make it sound as if we were breaking up.”

“And we… aren´t?”

“No! Unless… do you… want to…?”

“God no.”

“Good” Luka said dryly, but his grip on Marcelo´s shoulder relaxed noticeably.

“So…”

“You go ahead, I´m gonna call a cab or something” Luka suggested, but Marcelo dragged him alongside him to his car.

“No way, I´m taking you home, it´s not that far anyway” he insisted, desperate to delay the inevitable. He knew Luka was right, they needed to sort this out as quickly as possible, and since he was still on the fence about seeing their relationship dissected by public scrutiny, he needed to get his head clear. That did not mean he was comfortable at the idea of keeping distance, even though it was mutually agreed upon.

 

 

Marcelo was unable to sleep that night. His brain kept jolting him out of the rare moments of serenity during which he managed to forget about everything except the monotone humming of his ventilation system.

His teammates seemed to notice his lack of energy during their warm up session, acting more subdued around him than usually. Luka had not been called upon for that day´s final squad and did not turn up at all which he had equally expected and dreaded.

He knew his performance against Levante was poor, and even Zidane managed to look mildly surprised when his fullback left the pitch with a straight red card. Marcelo was almost grateful for the send-off because it gave him a moment to pull himself together before the others would inevitably swarm him with questions. However, he was not prepared for Luka to stick his head cautiously around the corner of the cabin he had chosen as a hiding spot. He made no move to join him, staring at the Brazilian until Marcelo, tired of pretending the disembodied head protruding from behind the door did not faze him, gave him a little wave.

“I don´t want to talk about it” Marcelo said, and Luka nodded, crossing the room to sit down beside his friend.

“I didn’t even do that much. He fell on me.”

Luka shrugged in response.

“I was just so… frustrated, alright, it´s not like I wanted to get sent off or anything.”

When the Croatian remained silent, Marcelo turned towards him accusingly.

“Right? I´m going to make a complaint, get that card rescinded. What was that even for-… Don´t you raise an eyebrow at me.”

“Well, I didn´t see that much-…”

“I said I don´t want to talk about it.” Luka gave him a shove, and Marcelo grinned ruefully. “I guess I do. Why are you even here? You should have made better use of your day off.”

“Perhaps.”

“Didn´t you say something about keeping distance?”

“I did.”

“Maybe you being here isn´t such a good idea.”

“Yes.”

“I´m glad you´re here though.”

“Yes.” The older man put his arm around Marcelo who leaned into the embrace like a man starved for contact. “I´m sorry, I shouldn´t have insisted upon distance, not when you were trying to help me at every turn.”

“That´s right” Marcelo said, “and I demand you make it up to me when we get home.”

Luka scoffed, squeezing his shoulders even tighter. “You´re insatiable, you know that?”

“I might be” Marcelo grinned, although there was little he wished for at that moment than a good few hours of uninterrupted sleep.

“And I´m not sure if you deserve it when you´ve made such a mess of the match today, _dragi_.”

“What´s that mean” Marcelo mumbled, having more and more trouble to keep his eyes open.

“It means _idiot_ ” Luka informed him, and it was testament to the Brazilian´s fatigue that he did not even try to push his colleague for the insult.

“I wanted to tell you that I met up with Emiliano earlier today” Luka murmured against his temple when Marcelo was about to drift off, and the defender shot upright so quickly that Luka jerked back, narrowly avoiding a painful collision with Marcelo´s head.

“And before you complain about not being there, he actually called me. He´s flying out to Chicago tonight and won´t be back until next month, so I took the opportunity. You had training, it´s not like you could have come with.”

“Doesn´t mean I have to like it” Marcelo grouched. “What did he say?”

“Apparently he visited his brother earlier this morning and was concerned about the effect our visit had on him. I answered his questions, and he told me some things in return.”

“What things?”

“For one, you were right about him having a few screws loose.”

“Meaning?”

“According to his brother, he´s been diagnosed with severe schizophrenia a year ago. That´s when he stopped going to his sessions.”

“He´s insane, I could´ve told you that” Marcelo pointed out. “So he´s unquestionably, certifiably mentally ill? Why didn´t he inform us? Why didn´t _Emiliano_ say anything? That could help his brother in court!”

“He said Carlos forbade him to speak of it. I guess he saw the diagnosis as a weakness to conceal, at least that´s what Emiliano thinks. He´d rather serve a sentence in prison than ´the loony bin´.”

“Too bad, because I´m not going to do him any favours. This is actually a good thing, right? We don´t even have to come up with a lie to appease Emiliano!”

“Yes. I think I convinced him that telling the jury about Carlos´ schizophrenia might be our best shot, and he´s agreed that he´ll hold up his end of the bargain if his brother gets a mild sentence.”

Marcelo slapped his thigh in triumph, but his hand paused in mid-air when realisation crept into his brain. Now that the pressure of someone holding their relationship as a bargaining chip was dissipating, he found himself out in the open, suddenly feeling very responsible for the decision they would have to make. Luka had been right, he needed to make up his mind.

“So… about going public…” Marcelo rubbed his cheek, wiping away a few stay droplets of sweat. “I´m going to be honest with you, I tried to make up my mind about this, I swear, I didn´t even sleep last night, but I kept going in circles and I was just… kinda lonely, I guess, and then I had to get up early and-…”

“Hey” Luka interrupted him, “you´re rambling.”

“Sorry.”

“Don´t be sorry, I´m not expecting you to just… decide that you´re suddenly okay with something huge like that.”

“… You´re not?” The Brazilian rubbed his left eye, using the other one to stare at his colleague. “But you were the one who said-… We need to come to a decision, you wanted to give us space to figure this out-…”

“Space, yes. We´ve spent at least three weeks with each other practically without a break. We´ve been training together, eating together-…”

“Sleeping together” Marcelo interjected cheekily.

“That too. I wanted both of us to have a night off, see if it changed anything.”

“You mean… You wanted to know if I… liked… being on my own?”

“If you put it that way… Look, I thought it would help, that you would welcome a break.”

“Well, I didn´t.”

“Yes, you´ve made that clear.”

“But-… what about you? You keep talking about me, what did you get out of that break?”

Instead of answering straight away, the Croatian pressed his hands together, staring at the joint finger tips like they contained the answer to life itself. To Marcelo, he looked a bit like he was silently rehearsing a pre-planned speech.

“Oooh” Marcelo whimpered, pressing his eyes shut, “give it to me straight. Don´t do that whole… thinking before saying your stuff, I can´t stand it.”

“You´re… suggesting I should talk before thinking-… Okay, okay.” Luka scooted a few centimetres away when Marcelo opened his eyes to present him with a scathing glare. “When I suggested we go separate ways for a little while, I wanted to test myself as well. I´ve never spent so much time with one person at once, and it was…” He sighed. “I wanted to know how it would feel being on my own again.”

“… How did it feel?”

“Terrible.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zazame12, if you are reading this, I hope everything is going as well as it can for you.


	10. Final Whistle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is it. I had a much harder time writing this chapter than the previous ones because I wanted to mention so many things and I didn´t even manage to address half of them. But I don´t see how else to end this story without endlessly dragging on, and that´s not something I want. This is, however, definitely not the last thing I´ll ever write about them.
> 
> You´ll have noticed some Croatian words and phrases sprinkled throughout the story. I have to thank the amazing adomaenia for her help with some of them (however, I didn´t consult her about every single one, so if you find a mistake, that´s mine, give it back, thank you very much).

Schizophrenia, as far as Marcelo had gathered during his subsequent internet research, was not about having different personalities, as he had thought up to that point. Instead, it manifested itself through hallucinations and delusions. Some of the affected had trouble acknowledging that there was anything wrong and nearly all of them experienced cognitive difficulties, rendering them unable to string coherent thoughts together, to plan ahead and to organise their lives.

“They say it´s inherited” Marcelo told Luka that evening. They were draped over his couch, with Luka leafing through the manual of their new washing machine since Marcelo´s old one had broken down just a few days before. Luka let his instructions sink onto Marcelo´s back, and his Brazilian colleague looked up from where he was sprawled across the couch and over his friend´s thighs.

“What is?”

“Schizophrenia. Look, it says here that genetics play a part in it which means his family could have a history with the illness.”

Luka rubbed the bridge of his nose thoughtfully. “Do you think… if one of his parents had it… That would explain Emiliano´s hints about his childhood. I didn´t want to pry but he really made it sound like a lot went wrong for his brother, maybe even for both of them.”

Marcelo fell silent for a moment. “Man” he said finally, “I can´t believe I actually feel bad for the guy.”

“That´s not hard to believe at all, you are just a decent person.” Luka planted his fingertips on Marcelo and started digging into the Brazilian´s back. “A sweet, soft, squishy person.”

“There´s nothing squishy about me” Marcelo protested indignantly, squirming in discomfort when Luka´s fingers found a particularly sensitive spot in his side. “I´ll squish you if you keep this up.”

“Uuuh, I´m scared” the Croatian teased his friend but abandoned his assault when his eyes fell on the manual again. “What-… are they serious? Look at this… _visual guide_ , what´s that even supposed to be?” He held up a page, pointing with indignation at a sketch surrounded by arrows and letters. Marcelo squinted at the spot but gave up almost immediately.

“I´ll call someone in the morning” he suggested, rolling on his side to pluck the instructions from Luka´s fingers. “No work now.”

“That´s not work, that´s-…”

“Sh. Ssshhh. You know what we should do now?”

“No. Stop sticking your fingers into my face, you´ll poke an eye out.”

“We should have an evening out. You know, go somewhere nice, just… celebrate life or something.”

“That´s very… you” Luka decided, finally managing to catch Marcelo´s waving arm and pushing it down. “Do you have anything in mind?”

“… I´m open for suggestions.”

But suggestions had to wait their turn as Marcelo felt his side vibrating just when he had finished his sentence. “Dude, phone.”

Luka wriggled a hand in between Marcelo and his pocket to fish out his phone, squinting at the name on the display before accepting the call. “Eh, Mario! _Pun kurac i tristo_.” Marcelo groaned miserably, burrowing his face in his couch´s cushioned arm rest.

He managed to tune out the mindless Croatian background chatter as he began to familiarise himself with the manual he had pilfered from Luka out of sheer boredom. When a glowing display suddenly appeared between him and diagram B, he blinked at it in befuddlement.

“He wants to talk to you” said Luka, but to Marcelo, those words made little sense.

“Who?”

“Mario.”

“What Mario?” asked Marcelo, because he had not quite given up on the hope that there was more than one Mario on Luka´s contact list speaking fluent Croatian and willing to call at such a late hour.

“I´ll give you a hint, it´s not Balotelli or Götze.”

“Mandžukić. Mario Mandžukić wants to talk to me.” The Brazilian grasped the proffered phone gingerly and held it up to his ear. “This is Marcelo.”

“ _Luka said you talked to man with gun_ ” the striker´s deep voice crackled through the phone.

“That´s right.”

“ _What he tell you_.”

“What did he tell us? Uh, not much, dude. He tried so explain some stuff, but I think that was more for his own peace of mind than for our benefit.”

“ _He said why_?”

“Why what?”

“ _Why he attack you_.”

“Not really. But he´s sick, man, his mind was probably all over the place-…”

“ _Yes, Luka said_.”

“Then why did you want to hear it from me?”

“ _Luka, he said it´s okay, not worry anymore. But he hide things_.”

“He does” Marcelo said, throwing a glance at his friend who raised an eyebrow at him in return.

“ _So. Tell me, you think man will leave you now_?”

“Honestly, yes.” Marcelo, tired of keeping the phone pressed to his ear at this awkward angle, heaved himself up from his reclining position. Gesturing towards Luka to indicate he was going to the kitchen, the Croat waved him off, already engrossed in the discarded manual once more. “There´s no way he´ll be released before the conviction, and I don´t know how reliable Google is at judging that stuff, but it seems like he´s going to get a prison sentence at the least. After that stunt he pulled at my home, he won´t be let off with a warning, that´s for sure. But I think his lawyers will be all over his schizophrenia, so he´ll probably get some therapy.”

Mandžukić was silent for a moment, most likely digesting all the Spanish input. “ _But after_ ” he finally inquired, upon which Marcelo shook his head before remembering that they did not, in fact, have a visual connection.

“I don´t think so. I mean, the guy was creepy as fuck, but if he´s gonna get help, I don’t see how he´ll hold up that obsession of his over the years he´ll be locked down. Plus, his brother seems to genuinely care about him, so he´s gonna be there, too.”

Again, Marcelo waited as Mandžukić processed his argument. “ _Good_ ” he said unexpectedly, and the Brazilian defender tried to think of a moment when he had heard the man use that word without the addition of ‘no’. “ _You help him._ ”

“Who, the stalker?”

“ _No,_ _seronjo. Luka_.“

“Ah, yes. I try. Wait, did you just make me a compliment?”

“ _No_.” And there it was.

“Aw, you love me” Marcelo told him purely out of spite, because the notion was so absurd that it had to be said out loud.

“ _I will end you next match_ ” the striker promised darkly. “ _Luka cannot help you. Zdravo_.”

“Hang on, wait-…” Marcelo shouted into the phone before the Juventus player could hang up. “Is there anything you can tell me? About Luka?”

“ _Like what?_ ”

“I don´t know, dude. You´ve known him for longer than I have. Got any tips? Stuff I should try to avoid, like that.”

“ _Ask him._ ” A string of beeps informed Marcelo that the Croatian striker had ended the call for good.

“Ask him” Marcelo huffed in repeat. “Very helpful.”

He went back into his living room and shook his head at Luka who was still trying to figure out the explanations in his manual, raking a disgruntled hand through his dishevelled hair.

“Put that-… No, put that down. Luka, I told you, I´m going to call somebody tomorrow. No need to get so worked up about this.”

“I don´t-… Let me just see if I can-…”

The Brazilian went up to him and snatched the booklet from Luka´s hands, tossing it behind him in a careless arch. Luka puffed up in outrage but Marcelo shoved him back onto the couch when he made a move to get up and retrieve it.

“What´s up?”

“Nothing´s… _up_ , what´s up with you?”

“It´s just a washing machine, right?”

Luka glanced at him, to the ground, then back up. In times like these, Marcelo missed the midfielder´s pitch personality, because he never felt the need to hold back his opinions, his criticism and encouragement, when they were playing and riding high on tension that manifested in many words.

“Right?”

Luka was still pressing his lips together in frustration, so Marcelo decided loosen his tongue by other means.

“Don´t do this to me, man” he pleaded, fully aware that he was shamelessly exploring the guy´s reluctance to feel guilt over keeping Marcelo in the dark and hoping that Luka would find it in his heart to forgive him once he realised he had been played. “You´re worrying me here.”

“I wanted to do this, okay?” Luka burst out and, unexpectedly enough, kept going. “This is the least thing I can do after I put you through all this-…”

“Hang on, you didn’t _put me through_ anything-…”

But the Croatian pressed on, undeterred by Marcelo´s attempts to calm him down.

“This shouldn´t be so hard-…”

“It´s just a machine, this is nothing-…”

“ _Exactly_!” Marcelo recoiled at the hysterical tone that had crept into Luka´s voice. “It´s _nothing_. I should be able to figure this out easily!”

“Hey, hey. Shh, hey. Talk to me.” The Brazilian drew his friend in his arms, and Luka made a half-hearted effort to get up before turning into the embrace, pressing his face into Marcelo´s shoulder like it was a pillow to silence his rage. Marcelo felt heavy puffs of breath heat up his skin, and while the sensation would have been more than welcome in other circumstances, alarm prevailed over pleasure. “Luka.”

The midfielder muffled some sort of reply into his shirt before turning his head to get his mouth free. Judging by what little of his face was visible to Marcelo, he was clinging to the last shreds of his composure.

“Are you-… are you cr-…” Marcelo started uncomfortably and decided to abandon the question before he actually spoke it into existence.

Luka exhaled, and the shiver in his breath made Marcelo tighten his grip anxiously. “No.”

“… You´re not okay though.”

That actually earned him a weak smile, a tiny quirk of his mouth that was gone in the blink of an eye. “Not really.”

Marcelo internally debated about the necessity of pushing the issue so soon, but he was saved from making a decision when Luka sighed and shifted in his hold to make himself more comfortable.

“It´s just… It´s not a rational thing. I can´t stop thinking about it. I´m replaying it over and over and I _know_ that we got out okay, that we were lucky… My brain keeps telling me to imagine what could have happened-…”

Pressing a cheek against Luka´s hair, Marcelo let him talk. Truth be told, he did not have the faintest clue how to deal with the topic that confronted him in form of his friend´s near-breakdown, but he figured listening was an appropriate first step. There were things among Luka´s halting confession that had not yet stopped festering in the remote corners of his mind and kept him up at night as well, although he had begun to deal with them better after a few sessions of the mandatory psychiatric evaluation with which they had both been confronted after the incident.

“… all that support. And I guess I needed to feel like I gave something back, even if it´s just that _fucking_ machine-…” It was strange to hear Luka swear in heavily accented Spanish, and Marcelo tried to think of the last occasion on which that had happened. When a vague image of that night pushed itself at him, he shook his head, willing himself to focus on the present.

“You know, that´s very sweet of you.” The defender kissed his colleague´s temple. “And probably the most romantic thing you have ever done for me-…”

“I haven´t even done it yet-…”

“Tried to do, then. It still counts.”

Luka heaved a sigh that was well on its way to become a full-blown sob, and Marcelo hurried to continue. “And I think it would be even more romantic if we figured this out together, hm? I´ll even let you tighten the screws and everything.”

“… I don´t think there are screws involved.”

“You know what I mean” the Brazilian insisted, lifting Luka´s chin with a gentle hand. “We´ll do this together.”

Luka´s eyes were very dark in between the illuminated shadows of his face, flickering over his own in an attempt to process what Marcelo had stated so plainly.

“Together, then.”

They laid the topic to rest, neither of them willing to spend more energy on the convoluted mess within their minds. Marcelo was aware that their talk had bared some of Luka´s issues but failed to really solve them. It would take him time to overcome the notion to which he had alluded, the perceived need to return what Marcelo had freely given. He knew his friend carried guilt with him that would spill through the cracks of his walls and give them some grief yet.

Still, he was an optimist to the core, and if anything, persistent to a fault. Guilt never stood a chance.

 

 

 

Luka found him when most of the inquisitive press had already packed up and left. Marcelo was blinking to get rid of the lightning that had left its jagged marks on his retina, and he started when the Croatian clapped his shoulder.

“Five years, huh?”

“Yeah” Marcelo affirmed, still rubbing his eyes. He let Luka tug him aside and grinned when a door fell shut behind them. “You won´t be rid of me for some time.”

“Shame” Luka said, stepping back when Marcelo took a swipe at him. “Hey now, don´t go around hitting people. Aren´t you supposed to be the resident good guy?”

“I´ll make an exception for you.”

“That´s exceptionally rude of you.”

“Fully deserved.” The defender caught Luka´s neck in a firm grip and pretended to strangle him, snorting when Luka played along, making exaggerated choking noises.

“That´s abuse” Luka declared when the Brazilian retracted his hands, “I´m going to tell Mario to beat you up.”

“As if you couldn´t do that all by yourself.”

“True” Luka said with a lopsided smile and Marcelo grabbed him again, overcome with the urgent need to kiss that stupid smile off his face.

“That´s better” the midfielder told him afterwards, “I might even keep your abusive tendencies to myself if you keep this up.”

Marcelo scoffed, sliding a hand into Luka´s hair to pull him even closer and smirking when the Croatian protested at the rough treatment. “No need to pretend, you´re loving this.”

“I might be” Luka admitted, although he carefully untangled Marcelo´s hand from his hair and took the other up as well. “I´m happy you´re staying.”

“It´s not like that was even in question.”

“I know. I just wanted to say it.”

“Luka.”

“Hm?”

“I can´t believe I´m saying this.”

“What?”

“You might be the most romantic man I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Marcelo officially extended his contract with Real Madrid on 13th September 2017, just four days after his disastrous match against Leganes.  
> I chose not to include Carlos´ conviction in court because that would take me another twenty chapters. I also left the ending quite open; it´s clear that Luka and Marcelo are still working through the experience connected to the guy, but I´d like to imagine they would handle it quite well, being who they are and also able to count on each other´s support.
> 
> I´d like to thank anyone who read this and especially those who commented on it, regardless of whether you talked to me about this story or something else entirely. I´m grateful for each and everyone of you.
> 
> I thought about a bonus chapter (to make it eleven which I think would be very fitting for a football story). I think I´d like to write the full script for that play from earlier chapters (so mostly dialogue). If anyone´s interested, leave a quick word.
> 
> If you have any further questions, annotations etcetera, I´ll be happy to receive them.


	11. Extra Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here you go, chapter Eleven ready for consumption. Enjoy!
> 
> This started out as a couple of sentences in one of my earlier chapters (I´m sure you´ll have noticed). I never originally intended to write this out, but the story of the script was already forming when I first wrote those few lines. Note that this is intended as a parody and, in a lot of ways, differentiates from my usual style.
> 
> Cursive blocks are not quite stage directions but commentary on how the players factually act out their lines. I wrote the proceedings how I´d imagine a possible final product; better than the first attempts but not in any way at actual-actor-level, and that worked rather well for the spirit of the whole thing.

**Location**

Spain

**Cast**

Cristiano Ronaldo                                       Javier, struggling shoe salesman

Luka Modrić                                                Isabel, nosy journalist

Sergio Ramos                                              Antonio, Javier´s best friend

Marcelo Vieira                                             Rodrigo, Isabel´s best friend

Casemiro                                                    Diego, corrupt owner of a football betting agency

Pepe, Keylor Navas, Dani Carvajal               Henchmen

Gareth Bale                                                 Homeless man

Lucas Vazquez                                            Young clerk

 

 

 

_The scene opens on a wide view of a sunlit park. There are joggers jogging about and bikers racing by, with the occasional laughing child and chasing dog thrown into the mix. The camera zooms in on a couple seated on a bench beneath a large tree. Cristiano is sitting stiffly, tugging at his jacket until the sleeves are perfectly adjusted. Next to him, Luka glances everywhere but the direction of the camera, feet dangling an inch over the ground._

Cristiano         “Wonderful morning, isn´t it?”

Luka               “Indeed. Perfect for foot-… ffffinding a new story for our next issue.”

_Luka shoves a white scarf with a black football sewn onto the fabric out of Cristiano´s sight._

Cristiano         “I don´t know how you do it. All that work you put in for that newspaper, you should have a nice evening out at the Ber-… at

                       the bathroom. In the bathroom.”

                        _Cristiano draws his jacket tighter around him to cover more of the white football jersey underneath._

Luka               “I thank you for the advice. You are a good friend, Javier.”

Cristiano        “Yeah. Friend…”

                       _They heave a perfectly synchronised sigh_.

Cristiano        “Alright, I have to attend other matters now. But let it be said how much I enjoy our conversations. Which is a lot, in case I failed

                      to specify before. Until next time, Isabel!”

Luka               “I´ll see you soon, Javier.”

                       _Cristiano walks away. Luka stares at his retreating back for a while before turning his eyes towards the ground with a look of_

_intense concentration._

Luka               “If only he knew how much I enjoy them as well. Love them, even, in case I failed to specify before.”

                        _He looks up and, with visible relief, acknowledges the camera._

Luka               “Well. Time to get into the spirit of the game.”

                        _He shrugs out of his jacket, revealing his own football jersey, and wraps the previously hidden scarf around his neck._

Luka               “I only wish he liked football as much as I do. There truly is nothing better than spending a day at the Bernabeu, cheering for

_los blancos_ , united by love for our team and the crippling sense of defeat afterwards.”

                        _Luka gets up and leaves as well, leaving an empty bench behind._

 

 

_The bright park gives way to a grubby kiosk front. Cristiano is leaning against the counter, leaning in to share his troubles with the man inside. Sergio listens to his friend attentively, holding a transparent bottle filled with bright liquid in each hand._

Cristiano       “She´ll never see me as more than a friend, Antonio. I get it, I´m not handsome enough. I´m not successful enough. I barely sell

                      enough shoes to get by. I´ll never be worthy of her affection!”

                       _Cristiano´s eye keeps twitching, but he delivers his lines with determination. Sergio shakes his head, pushing one of his bottles_

_at Cristiano._

Sergio            “Don´t keep lying to yourself. If you truly love her then you´ll have to toughen up. Here, have a drink. On the house.”

_He holds up the bottle he kept towards the camera._

Sergio            “I dare say, this delicious concoction will get you through even the most exercise-filled of days! For an agreeably sized fee, you

                      can do what you wouldn´t dare otherwise, feel like your sports idols feel!”

_He returns his attention towards Cristiano._

Sergio            “This will give you the energy to never stop complaining about your lack of a love life. Or, you know, actually do something

                      about it.”

Cristiano        “Don´t you see? Our relationship would be doomed from the start!”

                       _He moans, slumping over the kiosk counter and burying his face in his folded arms._

Cristiano        “She abhors football! She detests the sport! Loathes it, even.”

Sergio            “Sucks to be you, dude. I mean. That is truly devastating to hear.”

Cristiano        “So I said I hated it as well.”

Sergio            “You? You never miss a single _blancos_ match! Just last week I had to drag you from the stadium because you insisted on

                      singing our hymn at the victorious team.”

Cristiano        “I´m a fan, what can I do?”

Sergio            “All ninety-six verses.”

Cristiano        “I am an enthusiastic fan.”

Sergio            “You are the most obsessed guy I know.”

                      _Cristiano groans in despair._

Cristiano        “And that is the root of my grief! How can I ever flourish in a relationship that warrants the obfuscation of my predilection

                      for football?”

                       _Sergio´s face goes blank as he tries to work through the last sentence before Cristiano pinches his arm, jolting him out of_

_his stupor._

Sergio            “In that case, you should forget about her.”

Cristiano        “I can´t, and I won´t. I will find a compromise, but I will not rest until she is mine.”

                       _The camera zooms out, just about catching Sergio snickering into his hastily raised hand and Cristiano´s eye twitching_

_two more times._

 

 

_The scene changes again. The camera concentrates on two people clad in white waiting at a bus stop. It is dark, but the fluorescent glow of an advertisement screen coincidentally illuminates them both enough to reveal them as Luka and Marcelo._

Marcelo         “What a match, right? I can´t believe we defeated those striped fiends. What´s that, four times in a row?”

Luka               “You are quite right, Rodrigo, I just read about it on this handy little app.”

                       _Luka squints and turns in search for the camera. Since it is quite dark around them, it takes him a few seconds to spot it._

Luka               “I´ve installed it yesterday, and I suddenly feel informed about everything that is going on in the football world. Now I can

                      brag to all my friends about it!”

_He turns back to Marcelo._

Luka               “But you, you just plucked that information straight out of your mind, didn´t you? Is there anything you don´t know?”

Marcelo          “Unlikely. I am just that smart.”

Luka               “I know you are. And I enjoy watching football matches with you very much! It is truly a pleasure to be your friend.”

                       _Marcelo frowns sadly, and even in the darkness the slump of his shoulders is noticeable. However, he pulls himself up once_

_more after a second._

Marcelo          “I cannot hide my feelings anymore, nor do I want to keep living a lie. I have always loved you, Isabel. You are so passionate

                      about football, that´s really attractive to a guy. You are also very hot.”

Luka               “That´s really sweet, Rodrigo, but I´m afraid my heart belongs to another.”

Marcelo          “Don´t tell me it´s that other guy I saw with you yesterday.”

Luka               “It is. Javier is the one I love. You are a wonderful man, but I feel nothing but friendship towards you.”

Marcelo          “How can you break my heart like that? Now there will be a bitter tinge to every _blancos_ game that I´m going to see.”

_He turns his head in search for a camera until he´s eye to eye with the lens._

Marcelo          “Which is sweetened only by the exceptional price reduction for seasonal tickets of the coming season.”

_He turns back towards Luka, his previous sad expression falling back onto his face in the blink of an eye._

Marcelo         “But I´m still heartbroken.”

Luka               “I´m sorry. But let us remain friends, united by our love for football as well as friendship that overcomes all other

                      strife. Come here, my dear, and forget our troubles in our platonic embrace.”

_They hug, until distant coughing reminds them to continue._

Luka               “Is this not worth the pain?”

Marcelo          “You soothe me with your kind words, and if this is truly the way you feel, I will not stand in your way. I wish only for

                       your happiness.”

 

_The viewer is treated to the sight of a closed door. Cristiano is nervously approaching, clenching a bunch of flowers in his hands. Ringing the doorbell with his elbow, he steps back quickly when the door opens and Luka stares at him._

Cristiano        “Uh, hello! Beautiful… weather, isn´t it?”

Luka              “Sunny as an August noon, which incidentally is exactly what it is. To what do I the pleasure of your company?”

Cristiano        “I´ve been thinking…”

                       _He thrusts his flowers towards Luka who takes them automatically._

Cristiano        “Take these flowers which I specifically did not purchase from the Bernabeu gift shop this morning.”

Luka               “Sooo…”

Cristiano         “I love you. Let´s be together.”

Luka               “Alright.”

Cristiano         “… That was easier than I expected it to be.”

Luka               “Well, you took your sweet time. As a progressive…”

                        _He clears his throat._

Luka               “As a progressive woman I would´ve taken matters in my own hands if you had waited any longer.”

Cristiano         “No need now that I finally found the courage to tell you.”

Luka               “That´s true.”

                        _He steps aside and opens the door further to allow Cristiano to walk inside, closing it behind them before_

_the camera can follow them._

 

_The next image is a close-up of several photographs evidently taken after the two protagonists got together. They show Luka and Cristiano in front of a movie theatre, sitting at a table for two inside a restaurant, enjoying life on a badly photoshopped beach. It is clear that some time has passed after Cristiano´s confession._

_Luka is looking for Cristiano in the park from the first scene. He gasps dramatically when Cristiano steps into view, clad in a white jersey. The crest consists of a football. His cheeks are flush with ~~make-up~~ excitement. There is no doubt that he has just returned from a passionate match. Cristiano stops in alarm, his face a perfect picture of utter terror._

Cristiano       “My love, uh! I can explain!”

Luka              “What is this? Javier, what are you wearing?”

Cristiano        “This is, umm.”

Luka               “A _blancos_ jersey, as sure as day and night!”

Cristiano        “You are mistaken, this is-…”

_Luka turns towards the camera._

Luka               “Made from organic coral fibres, complete with custom-fit socks and shoe laces.”

_He pauses, obviously recapitulating the sentence in his mind, before nodding and turning back._

Cristiano        “I am exposed. Curse your unexpected knowledge of football attire.”

Luka               “I demand an explanation!”

Cristiano       “You can have one, as soon as you tell me what you were doing with Rodrigo earlier today.”

Luka               “We were just talking, is that a crime now?”

Cristiano       “Talking only? You two are practically glued to each other, I am alarmed and suspicious.”

Luka               “He is my best friend and nothing more, Javier. You should stop this nonsense right now, jealousy is so

                       unattractive to me. Instead, you might start talking about your love of football of which I have now undisputable knowledge.”

_Cristiano falls to his knees in heart-wrenching desperation._

Cristiano        “Don´t ask me to choose between you and my passion. Football is my life, but I cannot live without you.”

Luka               “My dear, there´s no need to be afraid. I too love football. Why, where do you think I´ve been spending our weekends apart?

                       I´m afraid I haven´t been entirely truthful with you. I told you I was at my sister´s, but I´ve been going to the Bernabeu

                       all this time. Now we both know the truth. Why, all this time we could have experienced our favourite sport together.”

Cristiano         “Better late than never.”

_Cristiano turns towards the camera with a sparkling smile, radiating trustworthiness._

Cristiano         “I can think of nothing better than enjoying a seasonal ticket, especially affordable for couples and groups, together with

                       you.”

_He gives the camera a wink and turns back._

Cristiano         “I also want to apologise for doubting your faithfulness. When you spent so much time with Rodrigo, I thought you were leaving

                       me for him.”

Luka               “Love, I could never do that.”

_They hug. It is an awkward affair, with both trying to pat each other on the back after they reach the approved bro hug_

_maximum duration of four seconds._

Cristiano         “I suggest that we celebrate our newfound understanding by attending the blancos match this evening – together!”

Luka               “That would truly be amazing, although I don´t think there are any more tickets left.”

Cristiano        “Fear not. With just a few clicks, I can make a last-minute purchase on this website!”

                       _He holds up his phone to present the screen to the camera._

                      “In the blink of an eye and without moving from this spot, I can get us those tickets at almost the same price as a month ago!”

Luka               “So useful! But wait, hold on, I almost forgot about my previous engagement.”

Cristiano        “Engagement!”

Luka               “Indeed. I have determined the ideal moment to gather more information about the latest target for my next newspaper article!

                       As it so happens, I will be unable to attend today´s match.”

Cristiano        “Woe is me! In that case, I will have to support _los blancos_ with twice the fervour.”

 

_As the scene grows darker, the viewer is confronted with the sight of Luka shuffling through several folders spread onto an ostentatious desk. He seems to be in a hurry, glancing up every other second to take a look at the door a few paces away. The room looks like the bureau of a rich yet tasteless person, complete with golf trophies and modern art._

_Luka flinches when the door suddenly slams open and three men spill through the entrance. First comes Casemiro, brandishing a fake gun with obvious relish, fake moustache hanging onto his upper lip. Pepe and Keylor trail behind him with somewhat less enthusiasm._

Casemiro      “Aha! I knew there was something amiss with that anonymous package that I was told to fetch from the post office thirty miles

                     away. In person, no less.”

Luka              “So you saw through my clever plan. No matter, this changes nothing. Whether you like it or not, I will take you down.”

Casemiro       “Now lady, you should know better than to try and expose my operation. You should have let me manage my bets in peace.”

Luka               “Never. I have proof of your illegal activities, and you´ll never find it. Tomorrow, your business will go down, so that football

                       fans in all of Spain will enjoy a fair chance at placing bets.”

Casemiro        “That´s where you are wrong. Surely you understand that I´ll have to stop you. Now come with me.”

_Casemiro grabs Luka._

Luka               “Let me go!”

_They struggle. Casemiro finally succeeds in getting Luka out of the tall corporate building and into his van. Dani sits behind_

_the wheel, fiddling with his sunglasses and scowling in_ _determination to make himself more intimidating. They pretend to drive_

_off, the roar of a car engine sets in, and Pepe, who has taken the front seat next to Dani, turns around to share a villainous look_

_with Casemiro._

Pepe               “Nice one, boss. Nothing will stand in our way now to rule the football fan world. We will flood the market with false statistics

                       and rigged matches!”

Casemiro        “Silence, you fool. Have you forgotten about her friends? They will surely look for her.”

_He points at Luka who is staring out of the window, distracted by the plush microphone dangling next to the car. Casemiro slaps_

_his shoulder, upon which Luka tries to look scared instead of bored. He doesn´t succeed._

Casemiro         “We will have to make sure they don´t ruin our plans.”

Dani                “Don´t worry, boss, we can take them.”

                        _Dani attempts an evil chuckle. He sounds like an arthritic duck. Casemiro ducks out of view, shoulders shaking, and Pepe_

_belatedly_ _remembers to cover his snort with a cough as the scene fades out._

 

_Now the camera is back on Cristiano anxiously searching for Luka who has evidently been lost for some time._

Cris                  “Isabel? Isabel!”

                        _Cristiano continues to shout until he stumbles across Marcelo who is roaming the streets in similar distress._

Cristiano          “… Rodrigo, right? Listen, you need to help me. I have not heard word of Isabel since she drove off yesterday evening for her

                        cover story.”

Marcelo            “Nor have I. It seems like something untoward happened to her. Let us join forces to solve the mystery.”

Cristiano          “Agreed.”

                        _They continue their search until another man calls out to them, sitting against the façade of a large building. He is barely_

_recognisable beneath the unruly stubble and the woollen cap hiding most of his features. Cristiano and Marcelo approach_

_him reluctantly._

Cristiano         “What is it? My good man, can you aid us in our endeavour?”

Gareth             “I sure can. You´re looking for a lady who disappeared yesterday, right?”

Marcelo           “How did you know?”

Gareth           “Call it intuition. Definitely nothing to do with your incessant shouting all over the place. Anyway, I was just minding my own

                      business when those people came running out of that building there-…”

                       _Gareth points towards what is clearly the corporate building from the previous scene._

Gareth            “Some strange looking fellows, I´m telling you. Dragging a woman with them as well.”

Cristiano        “That must have been Isabel!”

Marcelo          “Please, where did they go?”

Gareth            “Well. They got into a car and drove off. But as it seems, you are in luck! They halted not even two blocks from here!”

                        _Gareth´s digit sweeps across the street and rests on another building, this one even taller than the original one._

Gareth           “They went in there.”

Marcelo         “Why would they use the car for such a short distance-…”

Cristiano       “No! The real question is, what do we do now to rescue Isabel from the clutches of those dastardly villains? We need to break in

                     somehow!”

Gareth           “I have an idea.”

                      _Gareth withdraws his other hand, the one he has not used for pointing and which has suspiciously rested behind his back up to_

_that point. He produces a football from somewhere, holding it up with a conspiratorial grin. When he is sure that the ball has been_

_presented from all possible angles, he brandishes a couple of football boots as well._

Gareth            “With all of this, we can break a window and get in.”

Marcelo          “We? That´s nice, thank-… Hang on, aren´t you homeless or something? How do you just have that stuff on you-…”

Cristiano        “Excellent idea, my friend! _Vamos_!”

                       _The trio rushes up to the building they plan to infiltrate, instantly clad in Gareth´s football shoes. They select a window, and_

_Cristiano is the first to try and hit it with the ball. He misses by half a metre, and Marcelo shakes his head._

Marcelo          “This is how you do it, dude. Watch and learn.”

                       _He takes a shot as well, and it bounces off exactly the same spot Cristiano hit previously. They start scowling at each other, but_

_before they can actually start an argument Gareth grabs the ball, takes aim and smashes it through the class with astounding_

_accuracy._

Marcelo          “… Alright.”

Cristiano        “Works for me.”

Gareth            “Let´s go!”

                       _They enter the building. Gareth constantly trips over chairs and against tables because his cap keeps falling into his eyes. Marcelo_

_keeps flattening himself against walls to spy around corners. However, Cristiano marches forward with determination. Somewhere_

_on the second floor, Lucas shrieks when they approach him._

Lucas             “You-… You can´t be here! What are you doing here? Unauthorised personnel?”

Cristiano        “The only unauthorised thing around here is kidnapping my girlfriend! You will let us pass or perish in the attempt to hinder us.”

Marcelo          “Harsh. But yes.”

Lucas             “What-… Kidnapping? I totally didn´t sign up for that!”

Cristiano       “Come with us and you will be spared.”

Lucas             “Okay, okay.”

                       _Lucas joins their group. On their way further up, they pass a few more guys, somehow getting them on their side with minimum_

_effort. By the time they finally reach the top level, they have also assimilated Keylor, Pepe and Dani. Cristiano flings a door wide_

_open_ _to reveal Casemiro holding his gun dramatically against Luka´s temple._

Cristiano        “You are surrounded! And we even got your lackeys on our side.”

Casemiro       "Traitors! I would have expected this from you-…”

                       _He points accusingly at Keylor whose face remains impassive._

Casemiro       “You never talk, and you never suck up to me by doing me stupid favours that I did not ask for. I don´t even know your name,

                      but you!”

                       _His finger swivels towards Pepe who shrugs._

Pepe               “Sorry, boss, but I cannot ignore my suddenly developing conscience.”

Casemiro        “Never mind you spineless cowards, I will do this on my own then.”

Dani               “Hey, what about me? Are you not going to ask me why I changed allegiance?”

Casemiro        “I don´t give a rat´s ass.”

Dani               “Aaand that´s why.”

Cristiano        “If you are quite finished…”

Dani               “Sorry, yes. Go on.”

Cristiano        “Give up now!”

Marcelo          “Let Isabel go, and we´ll leave you in one piece, how about that?”

Casemiro       “Make me-…”

                       _In the blink of an eye, Cristiano is suddenly behind Casemiro and Luka, grabbing the former´s arm and flinging the gun from his_

_grasp. The group murmurs in awe, but Gareth nods wisely and lifts a leg to present the shoe attached to it._

Gareth           “These shoes really are something. Stylish yet sturdy, they let you run like you´ve never run before! Plus, they come in three

                      different colours!”

Casemiro       “Nooo, I am defeated.”

                       _Casemiro grabs a hold of his moustache, tearing it off sadly._

Luka               “Javier! You saved me.”

Cristiano        “Yes!”

                      _At the sudden onslaught of whispering and coughing, Cristiano indicates towards his followers._

Cristiano       “And I guess these fine fellows played a part as well. Lads, how about we meet up for the occasional game, hm?”

                       _Everyone somehow knows what he means and nods their agreement._

_The last shot shows Cristiano looking straight into the camera while the others, clad in identical jerseys, are kicking a ball around in the park from the beginning. He stares for a moment, then holds up a pen and scribbles something on a piece of paper that he also happened to have upon his person. He winks one last time at the camera before turning around and joining the others. The scrap of paper flutters towards the ground. It lands upside down, and a quick turn of fingers reveals its message._

_LET FOOTBALL TELL YOUR STORY_

_(And support YikeZCorp!)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thank you all so much for staying and talking with me, I´m immensely grateful!


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